One Week of Wonder
by William Easley
Summary: As August comes to an end, the Mystery Twins make the most of the time left-an adventure here, a sleepover there, and memories to take home as they turn sixteen years old! This isn't one story, but a set of short pieces and vignettes commemorating the passage of an important week in their lives. Oh-with this story, I have now published ONE MILLION WORDS of GF fanfic! Woot!
1. Chapter 1

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **1: EPIC!**

 **(August 22, 2015)**

Since Wendy was technically an adult—well, eighteen, anyhow—and since the Ramirez family had a pretty good idea that the last sleepover of the summer was going to be something of an epic blow-out, they took an overnight trip to Portland, leaving the Mystery Shack to Mabel, Dipper, Wendy, Pacifica, Grenda, and Candy.

Dipper pondered going over to the McGucket house for the night, but—well, Wendy was going to be there, so he vacated the attic in exchange for Mabel's downstairs room. It was right beneath the attic, though, so he didn't expect to get a whole lot of sleep. After the Shack closed for the day and Soos and his family took off for their trip, he and Wendy sat around and made small talk. Punctuated with occasional nuzzles.

Pacifica was the first of the guests to turn up, looking happier than she had all summer. She brought big bags with snacks, DVDs, a couple of games, and—as a surprise—some items of apparel she had bought for all the girls. She gushed about her new boyfriend, Daniel Raventree—Mabel still thought that "Dirk" was the name he should have stuck with, because "He has the same name as Wendy's dad! Awkward!"

Pacifica said, "Oh, I met his dad! He came over this morning to help Daniel move into the place that Stan helped him find. His dad's so cool! He's young-looking to be more than two hundred years old! And he's very well-off, nearly as rich as we are, so I know my dad will like the family!"

"I thought he was a farmer," Dipper said. Daniel had told him, Mabel, and Wendy that his father owned a farm that raised sheep, cows, and other animals not for meat but for blood—though they weren't killed for their blood, just tapped once a month each.

"He owns lots of them," Pacifica said. "Everywhere there's a vampire colony! All over the country! But he's a businessman, too, with investments in everything you can think of! He and his wife, Daniel's mom, have to live very quietly and move every so often so nobody notices they don't age, but they have condos and vacation houses all over the place! And now his dad's going to _buy_ the cottage at the end of the street near the school for Daniel to live in! Mr. Gleeful owns it, but Mr. Raventree offered him a lot of money, and so that's where Daniel and his cousin Viktor will stay!"

"Did Grunkle Stan work it out so Daniel can transfer to Gravity Falls High?" Mabel asked.

"Yes! And not as a senior, but as a junior! He'll be in my class!"

"Eeeeeeeee!"

Even Wendy winced at the high-pitched squee that emerged from Mabel. "C'mon, Dip," she said. "Let's you an' me let the younger kids talk this out."

The two of them strolled out to the back porch and sat on the sofa. They could still hear Mabel's yips of excitement. Dipper said, "You know, technically, Pacifica's a couple months older than me, and Mabel is five minutes older."

"Yeah, well, they're acting like they're twelve," Wendy said. "I guess I can understand that, though. Daniel's giving up his vampire immortality because he fell hard in love with Pacifica at first sight. You ought to put that in your next book!"

"Don't think so," Dipper said. "My readers are like ten, eleven, and twelve years old. They think romance is mushy and stupid."

"They'll learn," Wendy said comfortably. "Any word on Thanksgiving?"

"Haven't asked our folks," Dipper said. "Grunkle Stan says to let him work on them, and he can probably convince them better than Mabel and I could."

"Oh, yeah," Wendy agreed. "No doubt about that!"

"I'm gonna miss this place so bad," Dipper said. "And miss you even more."

"Oh, don't get me started, Dip," Wendy said. "Anyway, look at it like this: Two more years from next Monday, and you'll be old enough so we won't ever have to be separated again."

"I am so looking forward to that."

They cuddled for a little while. Kissed a little. Exchanged fond thoughts and feelings through their touch-telepathy. Reminisced a little.

Not very much. Too large a part of the past nine months had been taken up with the evil sorcerer Brujo and his plot against everyone represented on the Cipher Zodiac. They'd had some close calls. They'd suffered losses. Sometimes the trouble seemed to be overwhelming.

"Funny," Dipper said. "When I think about it, so much seems connected, but even now I couldn't say how. Even when Mermando's wife was kidnapped and we nearly drowned trying to rescue her—that seems tied in somehow with Brujo and his plans."

"That was so scary," Wendy agreed. Dipper caught her thought: _I was most scared of losing you._

— _And I was most scared of losing you._

 _But we woke up in heaven._

No, actually they woke up in a hospital being treated for hypothermia—but they were together, and that made it like heaven. Especially the moment when they took a hot shower . . . together. They both remembered that.

"Next summer," Wendy said, "we go camping. We missed out on that this year because of everything that happened."

"And I'd like to go hot-tubbing again," Dipper murmured. "This time, I won't be so embarrassed."

"And I am determined to teach you to swim," Wendy said. "Private lessons."

"Deal," Dipper said happily.

Grenda's car, a ten-year-old German import, a Zümen Rostlaube, chugged up the drive and into the parking lot. Grenda got out of the driver's seat, and Candy, who had forsaken her big round glasses for contacts, came out on the passenger side. They popped the trunk, and each walked to the Shack carrying a bedroll and a bag of whatever girls brought to sleepovers.

"Hi," Grenda boomed. "Here we are! Let's get this party started!"

"I see Pacifica is here," Candy said, nodding toward Pacifica's brand-new red convertible. "What is this I hear about her having a new boyfriend?"

"It's true," Wendy said. "She'll tell you all about it. I know already, so when you guys finish discussing it, give me a yell."

"Pacifica was a vampire for a few hours," Dipper said.

"No! Way!" Grenda shouted. "How cool is that?"

"Not very," Dipper said. "She really wasn't. She just thought she was. But you'll hear about that. They're up in the attic."

"I cannot wait to hear about her demon lover!" Candy said as they went inside.

Twenty seconds later, they started squeeing. Well, Candy did. Grenda's squees sounded more like a locomotive locking its brakes. "Better go on up," Wendy said. "I might have to ride herd on these younger girls!" She kissed Dipper and went upstairs.

Dipper tried to watch TV in the parlor. That didn't work too well. Between Grenda's pounding on the floor and Mabel and Candy shrieking, he couldn't hear much of the show—and besides, though Soos had put in a satellite receiver, even with more than three hundred channels, there didn't seem to be anything good on.

Mabel's room was worse. After an hour of enduring the noise, Dipper gave up and fell back on his last resort—he opened the secret door behind the vending machine and took blankets and pillows down to the lab level. That muted the sleepover to a distant rumble and squeak. Dipper lay on the floor and surfed the web for a while on his laptop, looking up random things. On Socialbook, he checked to see whether he had new friends (no) and whether anyone had unfriended him (no; he still had seventeen). He started idly to read through the posts—lots of cats doing things that were allegedly funny, lots of politics (boring), a few items about science that he read. He yawned and was about to shut the laptop off when a name caught his eye: Eloise Niemeyer.

"Couldn't be," he murmured, but he clicked on the post. It was titled "Anyone ever see a ghost?"

It was her—the girl whom he'd met more than a year earlier at the Westminster House, the eccentric mansion in San Jose that was reputedly the most haunted house in America. He read the brief account—Eloise wrote about the ghost that appeared now and then on the basement stairs of her family's home in Minnesota.

Dipper frowned when he began to read the responses. A few people found her story interesting. Others offered possible explanations for the apparition, ranging from "Somebody's prankin you girl" to "Get your head examined, you stupid b_."

Dipper typed in a reply: "I believe her. She and I saw some paranormal things together once."

His heart thumped when immediately she typed in, "Is that you, DP?"

"It's me."

"Let's go private."

They switched to a private chat. Eloise said, "OMG, Dipper! I lost your address and email, and I never could remember the town you said you were from! What was it?"

Dipper: "Piedmont, CA. And I'll give you my email again." He typed in the address.

Eloise: "Cool! Here's mine!"

Dipper: "Just a second." Dipper took out his phone and entered Eloise on his list of contacts, adding her email. "Got it now. How have you been?"

Eloise: "Great. I tried the exorcism bit, you know—ghost went on."

Dipper: "That was scary in the Westminster House."

Eloise: "I've never told anybody that whole story. You?"

Dipper: "My sister and my great-uncle, who's a paranormal investigator. You still playing ice hockey?"

Eloise: "You know it! You still on the track team?"

Dipper: "Yes. Varsity beginning this fall."

Eloise: "What was that town up in Washington State you talked about?"

Dipper: "Not Washington. Oregon. Gravity Falls. That's where I am right now. But I'll go back home after my birthday on August 31."

Eloise: "Happy Birthday! I guess you're sixteen then?"

Dipper: "Right."

Eloise: "I turned seventeen end of June."

Dipper: "Belated Happy B-day to you!"

Eloise: "Thanks. We ought to stay in touch. Got a girlfriend?"

Dipper: "I do. Got a boyfriend?"

Eloise: "That's debatable. I found out he took another girl to a dance when he'd told me he was sick. Have to talk to him and then I'll know!"

Dipper: "Good luck with that."

Eloise: "I'm gonna have to go. It's close to midnight."

Dipper: "It's—oh, yeah. Central time there?"

Eloise: "Yes."

Dipper: "Few minutes before ten here. Great to talk to you again!"

Eloise: "Email me! Tell me about your summer!"

Dipper: "Will do that this weekend."

Eloise: "Good night, Dipper!"

Dipper: "Good night, Eloise."

He signed off and shut down the computer. Frowning, he muttered, "Now why am I feeling guilty?"

Well, while they explored the spooky Westminster House, while a lich—a dead but animated sorcerer—threatened their lives and their sanity, he and Eloise had held hands. But there was nothing romantic about that. They were both scared, and the hand-holding was more reassurance than anything else. Heck, Wendy had had at least one new boyfriend in between the twins' first and second summers in Gravity Falls, and he didn't think that meant anything crucial.

But—well, maybe for a guy it was different. He didn't think guys who had steady girls should do things like that. Of course, to be fair, he and Wendy hadn't exactly committed back then—

His phone chimed, making him jump. He picked it up. Mabel. "Yes, what is it?" he asked.

"Brobro! Where the heck are you? We've looked everywhere!"

"I couldn't sleep in your room!" Dipper said. "You girls are too noisy!"

"You're not out there by the totem pole again, are you? Did you take the tent out?"

"No, I'm down in the lab," Dipper said. "It's quieter, even if I have to sleep on the hard floor."

"Come up to the attic!" Mabel said. "You have to! Right now!"

"You are not giving me a make-over!" Dipper snapped.

"Don't be juvenile! That's not it."

"What do you want, then?"

Mabel laughed. "That would totally spoil the surprise! Come on up and see!"

"You're not going to tie me up or anything weird, are you?" Dipper asked.

Mabel yelped with laughter again. "Nope! Promise! Wendy wouldn't let us do that, anyway!"

Well—that was true. The two of them were protective of each other. "OK, OK," Dipper said. "I have to stop in your room to get my pants, though. I'm in my underwear."

"Doesn't matter! Wrap a blanket around you! Hurry! That's an Alpha Twin order!"

Dipper shut off the phone. He figured that going up to the attic was the lesser evil—otherwise, the whole gang of girls would come thundering down to the lab, and Grenda, who still loved breaking things, might reduce Grunkle Ford's equipment to a shambles.

He got up, doubled a blanket, and improvised a toga. He went up, opened the secret door, and then climbed the splintery stairs up to the attic. He tapped on the door. "Here I am. What is it?"

Mabel opened the door and nearly collapsed. "Hail, Caesar!" she said. "Girls, look at Dipdop!"

"You told me to wrap a blanket around myself," Dipper growled.

Candy and Grenda pretended to be overcome with lust, or something like it. Grenda even yelled, "Hubba-hubba!" and Candy said, "Oh, be still, my aroused heart!" Pacifica just grinned in an evil way.

Blushing furiously, Dipper said, "I'm going back to bed."

But Mabel slammed the door and stood with her back against it. "Oh Wendy!" she called. "Time to fulfill your da-are!"

The closet door opened, and Wendy came out, also red-faced. "Sorry, man," she said. "We were playing 'Truth or Dare.' I'm supposed to kiss you while wearing this."

"This" was a filmy negligee, pale pink, with nothing under it but Wendy.

The other girls were hooting with laughter. Dipper ignored them, walked over to Wendy, took her in his arms—and dipped her. He wouldn't have been strong enough for that the year before, but he pulled it off, smiled at her, and went in for the kiss.

The laughter peaked and then died away. Pacifica coughed. Grenda said, "Uh, are they still breathing?"

Mabel said, "OK, Brobro, Wendy's fulfilled her dare."

Dipper broke the kiss. Then he said, "Want to come down to my place?"

"No!" Mabel said, sounding really alarmed.

"Mabes, let me think it over," Wendy said as Dipper raised her up again. "Seems to me I'm dressed for something special, and Dip is just wearing a blanket. Might be interesting."

"You do not have to!" Candy said. "That was not part of the dare!"

"One day, though," Dipper said. "Girls—grow up." He gave Wendy a good-night kiss, a short one, and headed for the door. He maintained his dignity even when Mabel twitched his blanket away.

"Like the boxer briefs, Dip!" Wendy called. "Good look for you, man!"

"Thanks. Oh—where did you get the sleepwear?"

"Gift from Pacifica, dude!"

Dipper grinned at Pacifica. "Thanks, Paz. Wendy and I really enjoy it."

The blonde's mouth fell open. Dipper went downstairs, reclaimed his pillow from the basement, and turned in, back in Mabel's room.

For some reason, the sleepover was much quieter after that.

And Dipper had some pleasant dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **2\. Scapbookportunity**

 **(August 23, 2015)**

Probably it wouldn't have happened at all if the five girls had got even one wink of sleep overnight. Or if, down in Mabel's room, Dipper hadn't finally gone to sleep, exhausted from the intermittent noises of laughter and Grenda-poundings up overhead, at roughly four A.M.

But the sleep-deprived girls kept coming up with plans for fun, and this was one of them. Mabel suggested it sometime after five in the morning. Nobody was sure about the idea, until Mabel turned it into a dare, and then everyone agreed—even Wendy, who knew that if she opted for "truth" that Mabel could ask her questions she didn't want to answer in front of the others. However, Wendy solemnly cautioned Mabel "Don't let this get out, ever, OK?"

"Of course not!" Mabel said, and, to give her credit, she really meant it.

And at five-thirty they all tiptoed downstairs. Soos had repaired the rickety stairs, so none of them got splinters in their toes. They moved stealthily down the hallway.

Mabel silently opened her bedroom door—earlier in the summer, she had oiled the hinges so there'd be nary a creak on those occasions when she wanted to sneak away without rousing Soos and Melody down the hall—and they peeked inside.

Mabel always kept a small, dim night light on, and in its feeble glow, they could see Dipper lying sprawled on his back, mouth open, taking the long breaths of sleep, but dead to the world. "Wait," Mabel mouthed, and she beckoned to Candy, who followed her to the kitchen.

Grunkle Stan and Vlad had been in the Shack the previous Friday, and the recycling wouldn't be taken up before Tuesday, so they quickly rummaged in the glass bin until they found what they wanted and returned to where the others, stifling giggles, were standing just outside the bedroom door. Mabel held up a hand, tiptoed inside, and arranged things.

Then one by one, the girls went in—Wendy, Pacifica, Grenda, Candy. Mabel knew her brother. He slept deep and sound just before time to wake up, and they didn't disturb him as they set the scene. Then Mabel went in and stood at the foot of the bed, gesturing for little adjustments. Finally, it was perfect.

Dipper still lay with his mouth wide open and his head tilted back, blissfully unconscious. On the bed next to his head and even on the pillow, Mabel had arranged three empty brown bottles she had rescued from the recycling bin. They had once contained Rimrock Beer.

Wendy lay next to Dipper, on her side, one arm over his stomach, her hand spread on his lower chest, one long leg crooked over his. On Dipper's other side, Pacifica reclined, her lips close to Dipper's cheek, where she had carefully placed a red lipstick kiss mark without rousing him.

Candy lay at Dipper's feet, her arm around his left calf, her cheek nestled against his knee. Grenda lay on her tummy across the bed, Pacifica's feet on her shoulder, her own head resting lightly on Dipper's right thigh.

Barely holding in her giggles, Mabel found the right spot, stepped up on a chair for elevation, and snapped the photo. The room was so dark that the flash went off automatically, and Dipper woke up—"Huh? What? What's—Wendy? What are—"

"Surprise!" the girls all yelled as Mabel flicked on the light. She had quickly hidden the camera behind her back.

Grenda boomed, "Mabel dared us to come down and give you a thrill!"

"We are pretending you are great lover!" Candy chimed in. "Like Lee Mong-nyong!"

"This is like a farewell party—in bed!" Pacifica added impishly, rubbing her nose against his left cheek.

Wendy kissed his right cheek. "No harm, man. Just a little prank!"

Dipper groaned. "Don't do this kind of thing to me," he begged. He grabbed his pillow, and the bottle rolled off. "What the—beer bottles? Have you girls been _drinking_?"

"No!" Pacifica insisted. She hitched herself up and breathed right in his face. "See? No alcohol!"

"Why did you do this?" Dipper had pulled the pillow from behind his head and clutched it against his middle. Well, a little lower than his middle.

"It's just a _joke_ , Brobro!" Mabel said, still giggling.

Candy sat up at the foot of the bed. "But is it not a nice way to wake you up, as if you were master of a harem?"

"No," Dipper said, his voice firm but not yelling. "No, it really isn't. Please. Just let me go back to sleep."

"Come on, girls," Mabel said. "There's no pleasing Mr. Grumpy-Grump!"

She turned out the light again, and Pacifica, Candy, and Grenda went out, each carrying an empty bottle. Wendy said, "Leave the door open. I'll be along in a minute."

They did.

Dipper got beneath the cover, groaning. "This is so embarrassing! Why'd you let them do this to me?" he asked Wendy.

She kissed his cheek. "Truth or Dare, man. I'm sorry. It really was just a prank. Are you very upset?"

Dipper's heart was beating too fast. He sighed. "It's just—Mabel, you know? She won't ever let me live this down."

Wendy had pulled a blanket around herself. She was still wearing the revealing light-pink negligee that Pacifica had given her. "Dip, I'm sorry," she said. "I haven't slept at all, and I guess my judgment is off. Mad at me?"

He took her hand.

— _No. But I just wish Mabel would think before she pulls stunts like this. It's humiliating._

 _Won't happen again, Big Dipper. Go back to sleep. I'll make this up to you somehow._

— _You don't have to. But they're all gonna tease me at breakfast time._

 _No, they won't. I'll speak to them about that. Get some sleep, Dip. Love you._

— _Love you, too, Lumberjack Girl._

For a long time afterward, the incident really did seem to be forgotten. The girls finally got a couple of hours of sleep. At eight, when Wendy and Dipper made breakfast for everyone, the others came down droopy-eyed but happy. Wendy must have talked to them all, because nobody said anything to Dipper about the trick they had played on him.

He and Wendy took the morning off from running, but they had a nice long walk out to the hill overlooking Moon Trap Pond and back to the bonfire glade, and they wiped out any unpleasantness that the morning had left lingering.

That should have been the end of it.

However . . .

The one photo that Mabel had taken remained on the memory card in her camera. She didn't print it out and vaguely meant to erase it after showing it to Dipper. But what with one thing and another, it slipped her mind and just stayed there, stored electronically, just waiting.

Waiting silently.

Like a time bomb.


	3. Chapter 3

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **3\. Life's No Picnic . . . Except When It Is**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

Dipper and Wendy did their run on Monday morning—but they didn't try for a record. Dipper still hadn't recovered from lost sleep, and Wendy seemed apologetic about the trick the girls had played on him after the sleepover, so she took it easy. They finished the run, showered, and had breakfast before anyone else was up.

"We meant it as a joke," Wendy said out of nowhere as they sat at the table. "I hope I would have had better sense than to go through with it if we'd had any sleep."

"It's OK," Dipper told her with a shrug. He had finished his shower first and had made them an omelet big enough to share: four eggs, cheese, chopped onions and peppers, some of Abuelita's home-made salsa, plus thick sourdough toast. "It's just . . . well, embarrassing. Mabel knew that."

"She loves teasing you."

"Oh, yeah, I know," Dipper said. "She still goes on and on about her extra millimeter! How's the omelet?"

"Good," Wendy said. "Really tasty, man. You're picking up some cooking chops!"

"And I don't get to show them off until summer's nearly over," Dipper said. "Wendy, I'm sorry we didn't have more fun this year."

"Well, we had an insane dude trying to kill us," Wendy said. "We'll make up for it. I'll dream up all kinds of crazy things we can do next time. You just better come prepared for me! Lots of vitamins, and build yourself up! Anything in particular you'd like to do with me, besides . . _. that_?"

He didn't ask her what "that" meant, because he had a pretty good idea already. He said, "Well, for one thing, I really hope we can go camping next summer," Dipper said. "Guess it's too late this time around."

"Yeah," Wendy said with a sigh. "Unless we could go a week from today—my day off. But that's the day before the big party."

"That's the trouble," Dipper said. "You know Mabel and parties. Lots of preparation. If we tried to get in a camping trip, we'd have to rush it. I don't want to do that."

Wendy nodded. "Gotcha. Hey, how about this—do you have anything planned with Mabel, by the way? For today, I mean?"

"No. She and Teek are going off somewhere." He chuckled. "Somewhere within walking distance. Teek's still grounded from driving, except to work and back!"

Wendy smiled. "Well, at least his mom and dad aren't trying to bust them up. That never works. I mean, Tambry's parents, when they found out about her and Robbie, they all but threatened to put her in a convent! And she still snuck around to see him. Now her mom's all 'Playing music and making records and going to college is well and good, but what about grandchildren?'" She laughed.

"Maybe I should get Mom to forbid me to see you," Dipper teased. "Then we could get married sooner."

"Nah," Wendy said, grinning. "She'd just tell you that you couldn't come up to Gravity Falls again, and I can't afford to come down and stay close to you, what with California rents, so I guess we'd have to run away to Mexico or some deal."

They both chuckled. Then, as they washed dishes, Wendy said, "OK, so if you don't have anything you have to do today with Stan or Ford or anybody, why don't we pack a picnic and take off for the hills? We could at least spend the day together. It's a little like camping, but without feral Gnomes raiding the food supply."

"I'd love that," Dipper said.

They waited until everyone was up—and after her breakfast Mabel had bummed a ride to Teek's house with Soos, who had to run into town for a few things—until they told Melody their plans. "May be hard to get us on our phones," Wendy warned. "Reception's spotty west of town. But we'll be OK. We'll be back by dinner."

They packed a medium cooler with sodas, sandwiches, and a few odds and ends, Dipper changed to more outdoorsy clothes—a flannel shirt, like Wendy's, but a light blue, jeans, and some hiking boots he'd bought but had rarely worn. He also packed his guitar. Wendy drove them in her '73 Dodge Dart, taking back roads that Dipper hadn't even known about until they were in the hilly country past her house. However, Dipper did suspect he knew where they were heading, and he was right.

Wendy parked off the road, on a rare level spot, and they climbed a long, thickly-wooded slope up to the grassy crest of a rounded hill. "You've been here lately," Dipper said, looking around.

They emerged next to a small private cemetery. It had recently been weeded and tended. "Yep," Wendy agreed, tossing down the plaid picnic blanket. "Four times a year we clean it up. Not too weird for you, is it?"

"No. I like this spot," Dipper said. "It's beautiful."

It was the place where Wendy's mom and a few of her relatives lay buried, inside the small space fenced in with black curlicues of wrought iron. Not far outside the fence a simple uncarved stone and a low grass-covered mound marked the resting place of Russ, a fox-boy who had once loved Mabel and who had given his life to save hers. Dipper noticed that when the Corduroy family had tided up the family cemetery, they had also trimmed the grass on his grave. A thick cluster of wildflowers, spikes nearly three feet tall, grew near the stone. They were past their prime, but tall, thin cones of pink-to-lavender bell-shaped flowers still clung to the central stems. "What are those?" Dipper asked.

Wendy glanced over and smiled. "Foxgloves. Not native here, but I thought they were appropriate, so I planted 'em. They're really pretty in mid-summer."

"Foxgloves," Dipper said. "I'm glad you thought of that."

"Next year," Wendy said, "when everything's green and beautiful, we'll bring Mabel up here. This summer things were too hectic. And—well, you know it'll make her a little sad. This summer I didn't think she needed that."

They sat on the hillside near the wrought-iron fence, looking toward Gravity Falls. The tallest hill in the valley, the one beneath which a crashed UFO rested, stood ahead of them and just off to the right. Past it they could see the distant town, in miniature, and even past that the shattered bluffs with their UFO-shaped overhangs that marked the boundary of Gravity Falls Valley.

At this distance the old mining trestle was barely visible—there was talk in town about dismantling it, since it was rusting to pieces and would crash down one day. Dipper hoped the town would consider not demolishing but replacing it. Maybe not with a real trestle—nobody took the mining train any longer—but with something, a symbolic span.

"I'm as bad as Mabel," he said. "I hate to see things change."

"Life is change," Wendy said, leaning back, her shoulder touching his. "For bad, for good, for in-between."

"Some things won't ever change, though," Dipper said. He coughed. "Uh, I've, uh, I've been kind of working on another song for you. Would you want, you know—want to hear it?"

"Sure," Wendy said. Her voice took on a warning tone: "Wait a minute, though. It doesn't have explicit lyrics, does it?"

"Huh?" Dipper squeaked. "What? No! I—" He relaxed. "You're kidding."

"Yeah, kinda," she admitted with a grin. "But I wouldn't want to shock Mom or anything. Yeah, Dip. Play the song for me."

"I have to sing it, too," Dipper said. "I wish I had a better voice."

"I don't," Wendy said. "Go on and sing it, Dipper. I like to hear you sing."

He took his guitar out of the case, tuned it—he had decided to take the plunge and buy a new guitar that fall, a better acoustic model, since this was still his beginner's version and stayed in tune for only about half a minute at a time—and then strummed the opening chords. "OK, I wrote this over the last couple of weeks, thinking about change and about you and me. I hope I can get through it."

He played the opening stanza, a slow, sweet, and sad tune. Then, satisfied the guitar was sounding right, he murmured, "It's called 'Summer's Ending.'" Softly, with his voice quivering a little bit, he sang the lyrics for Wendy:

* * *

 _Here we stand, my darling Wendy,_

 _As another summer ends,_

 _Time has changed us, oh so quickly_

 _Since we said we'd just be friends._

 _._

 _Soon the miles and tears will part us_

 _Until we can meet again._

 _When another summer's over,_

 _Leaving brings me so much pain._

 _._

 _Now my wounded heart is grieving,_

 _Darling, kiss me one last time,_

 _For too soon I must be leaving,_

 _Tell me once more you'll be mine._

 _._

 _Oh, I wish I could be clever,_

 _Wrap my love into a rhyme,_

 _But my heart is yours forever,_

 _Though it's yearning all the time._

 _._

 _So farewell, my darling lover,_

 _Now I promise to be true—_

 _For I can never love another,_

 _And my heart belongs to you._

 _Oh, I can never ever love another,_

 _For my heart belongs to you._

* * *

He added the ending grace notes. "That's it," he said, feeling butterflies in his stomach.

Wendy told him how much she liked it. Not by speaking, but by gently taking the guitar from him, setting it aside, and wrapping him warm in her arms.


	4. Chapter 4

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **4\. Mabel's In a Jam**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 1: Visit to an Ex**

Unlike Dipper, Teek was no runner. Tall, a little on the skinny side, and lanky, he was in average shape, probably, but not used to traveling long distances on foot at top speed. Mabel, on the other hand, didn't practice running, but she had tons of sugar-fueled stamina. When Soos drove them back to the Shack that Monday morning, she suggested a long walk in the woods, and Teek agreed because when Mabel suggests something, what can you do but agree?

"Where are we going?" he asked for the third time that morning when they had walked for more than an hour and were miles from the Shack. He felt a little uncomfortable. He had given up his big round glasses for contacts, except in the spring allergy season, but for the expedition he and Mabel had both donned sunglasses, and he wasn't used to wearing them.

"Want to say goodbye to some friends," Mabel said, shoving through a tall fern and letting it slap him in the face. That was the main reason for the sunglasses—eye shields. "Don't lag behind! This is dangerous territory. We're not far from the Gremloblin's stomping grounds, and there's also unicorns to worry about."

"I thought you liked unicorns—"

"Nah. They're jerks," Mabel said flatly. "Even though they helped us out during Weirdmageddon. The only way they won't mess with you is if you threaten to beat them up. Forget them."

Teek said mildly, "I don't even remember what I was talking about."

"Good man!" Mabel said. They broke through the brush and into a six-foot-wide lane through the heavy, dense forest. Years of old leaf-mold lay on it. "Ah-hah! Here's the pathway. We could have taken the golf cart—"

Teek slipped in the leaves as they went down the steep bank to the trail. "Now you tell me."

"Yeah, well, if the Gnomes should get ticked at us, golf cart's a bad idea." She started walking again. The heavy layer of leaf mulch at least gave them a soft footing, a little like taking a stroll over a bed the size of a county.

"Wait," Teek said. "You're going to say goodbye to the _Gnomes_?"

"Well, yeah, and visit," Mabel told him. "Oh—don't react if you see them doing weird stuff with squirrels."

"Like what?" Teek asked suspiciously.

"You'll find out, if they're doing it. If they're not, we didn't bring any brain bleach, so you're better off not knowing."

"At least it's pretty here," Teek said, and that was true. It was still before noon, and the heavy canopy of leaves overhead sent slanting rays of sun down to the ground, dappling the surface. Mabel was wearing one of her own sweaters, a brilliant, vibrant red with a beaming sun-face on it. Teek, in a blue short-sleeved shirt and jeans, felt drab by comparison. When sunbeams hit Mabel, it was like a spotlight. Teek found the sight enchanting.

They walked for another half-hour. "We're in Gnome territory now," Mabel announced. She stopped and sniffed the air. "Hey, do you smell that?"

Teek concentrated. "Uh—woodsmoke? And something sort of sweet and fruity?"

"This way!" Leaving the trail, Mabel pushed through some ferns and said, "I think it—wait, what? Hi, Gnomes!"

Teek blundered against her. "Sorry."

She wriggled a little. "Later, Teek! Hiya, ladies!"

In front of the two teens and in full sunlight, a clearing opened, and the clearing had been set up with four very long—for Gnomes—tables. Long and low to the ground. Four waist-high (to the teens) stone—what? Barbecue grills? Outdoor stoves?

Something involved with cooking, anyway—the four stone structures sent up fragrant, pale blue applewood smoke, and on them enormous iron cauldrons—well, each one held about a gallon, but they were enormous for Gnomes—bubbled and steamed. Dozens of Gnomes had paused in their work and stared at Mabel and Teek in utter horror. "Hi," Mabel said again, trying for the third time. "I'm Mabel! This is Teek! I was nearly your Queen once! What's cooking?"

The Gnomes, all female—you could tell because they didn't have beards, though otherwise with their blue overalls and conical red caps they were identical to their men—clustered, muttered, and shoved the eldest one forward. She tried with no noticeable success to make her voice deep: "Interlopers! Flay or feece the wrath of Gnomes!" Then the diminutive figure turned to the others of her kind and squeaked, "Was that right? It didn't sound right."

Teek cleared his throat. "Ma'am, I think you meant 'Flee or face the wrath of Gnomes.'"

The Gnomes conferred and then all forty-one of them—Mabel had counted—said in unison, "Yes!"

"Aw, c'mon," Mabel said in her most ingratiating tone. "We don't mean you any harm. We're friends of Gnomes. My Grunkles have helped you from time to time, and you've helped us. Hey, where's Jeff? He'll vouch for us. And I fed your Queen a peanut-butter-and-Graham-cracker snack once. She ought to remember that."

More conferring. Then finally, the oldest Gnome lady said reluctantly, "You may stay, but don't dare step into the sacred jam circle."

Curiously, Mabel stepped forward. "This one that I'm standing in now?"

"Yes, that's the one. Don't step into it."

Mabel stepped back. "OK. Hey, what are you cooking? It smells delicious. Oh, and what can I call you?"

The Gnomes had to conference again. Mabel remembered that they had not exactly a hive mind, but at least a scattered one—almost all individual Gnomes had an incredibly hard time making decisions, which is why the civilized ones relied on a wise Queen (though the current one happened to be a badger—long story) to give them orders and directions. Finally, though, the old Gnome said, "I'm Gnorma, Mistress of the Jam Works."

"Hey," Mabel said. "Jam? My first crush in Gravity Falls, Norman, was a pile of Gnomes! Jeff was at the top. I remember when he first came to the Shack, he had jam on his face. My brother thought it was blood!"

The Gnome women all dropped their gazes to the earth and sighed. Gnorma said, "That was Mourning Jam. We serve it only at a funeral. Our former Queen had recently died then."

"Mourning Jam? Is that what you're making?" Now Mabel could see that tiny earthenware pots with carved wooden stoppers covered about half of each table. Each pot might have held as much as two ounces, no more.

Again, the Gnomes had to discuss the response before Gnorma replied, "No, we have sufficient Mourning Jam for the next year, the Dark Death willing. Now we're making strongberry, grope, boobberry, and graspberry jams today. This is because they're all in season now."

Mabel licked her lips. "Strawberry, grape, blueberry, and raspberry, you mean?" she asked.

Every question led to another Gnome conference. After this one, Gnorma said, "No."

"Smells delicious. Hey, Gnorma, you've got a lot of jam there," Mabel said. "May we sample some? Just a taste?"

After a five-minute-long discussion. Gnorma said, "We would need the Queen's permission. You must ask her prime minister, Jeff."

"Yeah, I know Jeff. Where do we find him?" Mabel asked instantly.

Gnorma stood on a table and pointed north. "Do you see the tall brown dead tree that towers above all the others?"

"Got it!" Mabel said, standing on tiptoe.

"He's not there. But if you go to it and find the side with moss on it and then go around to the opposite side of the tree and walk into the forest the other way, you'll probably find him. He's leading a construction crew today. They're gathering fallen wood. But if he's not there, he may be somewhere else."

"My brain hurts," Teek murmured.

"C'mon, Teek!" Mabel said, grabbing his hand. "Let's go talk to the Queen!"

"I thought she was a badger," Teek said.

"Yeah, she is. I didn't say she'd talk back!"

The teens hurried back to the trail and off in the direction of the tree. One of the Gnomes said to Gnorma, "Why would biggers like them need Gnome jam?"

Gnorma shook her head. "And jam meant for our young who are coming of age, too."

"It's not like we don't have plenty of it."

"No," Gnorma said. "We have so much that every year we have to throw away lots of it. It's no good after three years of storage. But it's not meant for biggers."

"We must wait to hear the Queen's decision," someone said.

And all the Gnome women automatically said, "All praise the Queen!"

Then Gnorma—who, for a Gnome, really was a bit of a leader—said, "Enough lollygagging. Let's get back to work!"

"Lollygagging?" one of the others asked. It wasn't the sort of question anyone would answer, though.

Instead of answering, they all got back to work. The youngest one, Cynthia, had just filled a dozen jars with strongberry jam. She forgot herself—the young sometimes did—and licked a spoon.

Then without thinking, she took the cauldron off the fire, scoured it with water, and put it back on the heat again, pouring in the strongberries.

Nothing remarkable about that.

Except, under ordinary circumstances, it would have taken six Gnomes working together even to lift the cauldron.


	5. Chapter 5

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **5\. Mabel's In a Jam**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 2: Gnomens**

"How about letting me go first this time?" Teek asked. His left eye was red and leaking tears after yet another fern frond had flapped across it. "In fact, I insist on it."

Mabel looked at him. "Ooh, forceful! I like that. OK, you're the boss, Teek. Lead on. But go exactly where I say, and don't you dare let a branch pop back and smack me!"

Smiling, Teek nodded, grabbed Mabel's shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her. "How's that for forceful?" he asked.

Laughing, she shoved him away. "You're wasting time! Get going!" But as he turned, Mabel patted his butt. "Also, it was very nice. File that activity away for later. OK, I can see the tree up ahead there—we need to swerve toward the left, see?"

"Yeah, got it," Teek said. Keeping a straight path through woods where there were no paths was difficult, especially when the canopy of leaves cut off their view of their goal.

But Teek somehow stuck to the trail, and in five more minutes, Mabel crowed, "You did it! OK, there's the tree, there's the moss, so let's go around—wait, is this exactly opposite the moss?"

"Just a second." Teek went around the trunk of the tall dead tree, hoping it wouldn't fall on him. The pitted, woodpeckered, barkless wood had bleached to a gray-white. Except on the north side, where a thick growth of deep green, coarsely hairy moss splotched the trunk. Teek said, "I'm where the moss is. Let me back up so I can see where you are, too. OK, move to your left. No, your left. Well, it's my left, too—OK, stop, stop. Now pick up your left foot. No, other foot. Now step sideways with it until I tell you to stop. One more step. One more. Stop! Now you're facing the right direction. Hang on and don't move."

He came over to her. "You know your right from your left," he accused. "What's up with that?"

"Just messin' with you," she grinned.

"Uh-huh. I guess it's OK for _you_ to waste time?"

"Uh-huh." She crossed her arms over his shoulders, her hands clasping his head, and pulled him close. "One for the road?"

They kissed again, and then Teek took the lead. Um, in walking, that is. Their way led over a series of low hillocks, bristling with jagged boulders and thick with ankle-tangling deadfalls of old wood. The going wasn't easy—though Teek thought he saw a trail that the Gnomes might have followed, only a Gnome or a medium-sized rabbit could have taken it. He and Mabel waded through waist-high undergrowth over about a dozen of the little hills. Then Mabel said, "Hsst!"

Teek stopped and frowned. "Huh?"

Impatiently, Mabel repeated, "Hsst! That's what Annie Droo always says in the mystery novels when she hears someone in the distance."

"You read Annie Droo mysteries?"

As though in a mild huff, Mabel demanded, "I used to! They're popular with girls. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Teek said. "Up until I was about thirteen, I liked the Hardly Boys myself. Dad had the whole series from when he was a kid, and he gave them to me. Did you know the Annie Droos and the Hardly Boys are really the same books?"

Mabel shoved his shoulder, making him stagger for a step. "Get out of town!"

"It's true," Teek insisted. "Especially as the two series went on. Check it out. Find the Hardly Boys number fifteen— _The Case of the Crimson Cat._ Then read the Annie Droo book number fifteen. It's _The Adventure of the Colorful Kitty._ The plots and even a lot of the dialogue are exactly the same, but the names have been changed. Well, the names and the genders, but you know, they're basically the same story."

"Huh," Mabel said. "Who plagiarized who?"

"Nobody, I think," Teek said. "The authors—Dick W. Franklin and Kennalee Carlin—are really the same person. Those are pseudonyms."

"Really?" Mabel asked.

"Look it up," Teek suggested. "See, what I think happened was that the publishing company thought girls wouldn't read the boy ones and boys wouldn't read the girl ones, so it was OK to—"

"Hsst!"

"OK," Teek grumbled _sotto voce_. "I'll hsst."

They had been whispering and creeping closer to the indistinct sound of voices, or, more accurately, of a single voice. It was a male voice, a little high-pitched and irritable: "Steve, don't make me come down there! Lift with your knees! Your knees! No, don't lay on your back and grab the stick with your feet! You know what I mean, Mister!"

Teek pushed through the last heavy growth of ferns. Ahead of them, on this side of a broad, rocky-bedded creek, about three dozen Gnomes—all males—looked hard at work. Three of them bustled around a big jumble of fallen tree limbs, which appeared to have washed up there when the creek had flooded some time in the past. They busily tied different colored ribbons to the fallen branches—yellow, red, and blue.

"Hiya, Jeff!" Mabel yelled, making Jeff jump about twice his height into the air. His cap fell off, and he scrambled to replace it. Mabel noted that his head, despite rumors to the contrary, was not pointy. She said, "Sorry to scare you!"

The other Gnomes had frozen where they stood, even Steve, who now had a six-foot-long sapling trunk balanced sideways across his shoulders. "You didn't scare me!" Jeff insisted. "OK, fellas, take five! But no eating lunch yet! It isn't time! I'll tell you when it's time!"

As Mabel and Teek pushed out of the brush, they saw the Queen of the Gnomes, a placid, rather fat badger, curled up in the shade of a tree, snoozing. Her small gold-colored crown, which Mabel suspected had been pilfered from some Princess doll, rested beside her on the grass. "Jeff," Mabel said, "you remember Teek."

"Hi, human," Jeff said in a grumpy tone.

"I came to tell the Gnomes goodbye," Mabel said. "Dipper and I have to go home in a week. So, you know—have a good fall and winter, don't freeze or starve, and try to stay warm."

"That's exactly why we're here," Jeff said. He looked around at the sound of a loud clack! Steve lay on his back, both feet kicking the air. He'd tried to scurry between two closely-placed saplings, and the branch across his shoulders—it was tagged yellow—had jammed.

Jeff slapped his forehead. "Just _leave_ the wood, Steve!" he yelled. "Pick it up you're your break's over! I swear, Steve, without me you'd die of sheer brainlessness!" When Steve, minus his burden, vanished in the undergrowth, Jeff turned back to the teens. "We'll miss you, Mabel. But since we've gone into the pest-control business, we're in decent shape, not like back when we had to liberate food from the humans. Yeah, we're here gathering kindling, firewood, and construction materials. It's supposed to be a hard winter."

"How can you tell?" Teek asked, sounding interested. "Rings on caterpillars? The way ants march in their lines? Bird migration patterns?"

"No," Jeff said, giving him a look. "The long-range forecasts on the Weather Channel."

"The yellow ribbons are for wood you can build things with," Teek said. "Blue ones are tied to the small stuff, so that's for kindling, I guess? And red's firewood?"

"You're quick. It took me three months to train the spotters that color coding," Jeff told him. "You interested in a part-time job?"

"Got one, thanks," Teek said.

"Listen," Mabel said, "we just met some girl Gnomes making jam."

"Yeah, the ladies are really jammin' today," Jeff said, waggling his eyebrows. "How're they doing?"

"Looks like they're doing awesome," Mabel said. "They've already got three whole great big stacks of jam jars filled up and corked. Listen, I asked them if we could have a taste, and they said we'd have to get your permission. What do you say, ex of my heart?"

Jeff darted an anxious glance at the slumbering badger. "Shhh-shhh," he said. "Cool it with the love talk. Her Majesty doesn't know about our personal history. Maybe it wouldn't matter if she did, but on the other hand, if she got jealous, she could eat me. Jam, huh? A taste, you say? You just want a lick?"

"I collect taste sensations!" Mabel said. "Come on, what do you say, old friend? Old buddy? Old chum? Old amigo?"

"I don't know what 'amigo' is," Jeff said. "And I'm not shark bait, but yeah, I'll take 'friend' and 'buddy.' Just a little jam, right?"

"A mere smidgen," Mabel said, rapidly batting her eyes.

Jeff shrugged. "Sure, OK. Tell Gnorma that I said it would be all right. Here, I'll give you a token." He looked around, picked up an acorn, and handed it up to Mabel. "Give this to her but be sure you offer it so the end with the little pointy thing is on top. That'll show her it's from me and that I—uh, that is, the Queen—gives her permission. Not too much jam, now—this is Gnome jam we're talking about, and I don't think it's ever been tested on humans."

"No prob, big guy!" Mabel said. "Hey, by the way, Dip and I are having our birthday party a week from today! Come to the Shack and bring your Gnome horde to join in!"

"Um—will there be cake?" Jeff asked, licking his lips.

"Oh, there will be so much cake!" Mabel said.

Doing a little shuffle-step dance, Jeff said, "Honey, it's a date!" He immediately flinched and then anxiously said to Teek, "Just a term of friendship. She and I are just friends."

"I know," Teek said, smiling. "Don't worry. If I'd taken it any other way, I'd have drop-kicked you by now."

"That's mighty neighborly of you!" Jeff said, beaming. He squinted up at the sun. "Excuse me, now, got to get this gang of slackers back to work if we're to have heat, light, and repair materials for the winter." He gave a shrill whistle, causing the badger to stir in her sleep, the way a dog will when it dreams it's chasing a rabbit, and red pointed caps popped up as the work party returned, muttering bitter complaints in Gnomish about how short the break had been.

"OK," Mabel said to Teek. "We're in business. Now all we have to do is find our way back to the jam session." She looked around. "Annnd all the trees look exactly alike."

Teek pulled out his phone and checked. "I've got two bars, which is enough," he said. He switched on the GPS app. "All right, I took the coordinates when we met the female Gnomes. And it's, let's see, that way. About half a mile. We can follow the creek bank part way. That should be easier going."

"You think of everything!" Mabel gushed. "That's worth a kiss!"

The two of them hadn't exactly sworn a pact of abstinence, as Wendy and Dipper had—but Teek and Mabel had at least talked it over, and they had drawn a few lines. So far, they hadn't crossed them. Well, maybe put a toe over now and then, but nothing drastic. However, after the kiss, Teek took the lead again and hurried as much as he could.

He liked Mabel a lot, she was attracted to him as well as _attractive_ to him, and he loved the way she put everything she had into a simple kiss. Heck, from the beginning of the summer, the two of them were beginning to think they might truly be in love with each other. And they both felt how each of them would miss the other after September first.

And the kiss had been drawn out and very stimulating.

So Teek kept his eyes on his phone, his mind on the trail, and hurried.

As Dipper had once remarked, why tempt the fates?


	6. Chapter 6

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **6\. Mabel's In a Jam**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 3: Mushrooms and Jam**

Teek and Mabel had reached a place where the creek broadened and curved, and they would have to climb the banks and set off through the woods again to reach the jam-making female Gnomes. On the grassy edge of the creek bank, in a shadowed nook, Mabel spotted a big cluster of off-white mushrooms sprouting on fallen tree trunks. They looked like fans stacked up in a shelf formation.

"Hold up," she said, pointing at them. "Are these poisonous?"

Teek stared at the mushrooms, reaching to adjust the glasses he no longer wore—an old habit. "I . . . don't know. I'm not a fungus expert."

"I know who is, though," Mabel said. She took out her phone. Only one bar here, but maybe . . . she speed-dialed Wendy.

"Mabes," Wendy said a moment later. "What up?"

"Put me on face time," Mabel said. "I want to ask you a question about something."

"Just a sec."

When Wendy's face appeared on her phone screen, Mabel said, "Take a look at these and tell me—wait, what happened to your hair? It's all messy."

"Wind," Wendy said, tossing her head. "Me and Dip are up on a hill, and it's breezy." She swept strands of red hair out of her face. "What am I looking at?"

"Breezy, huh?" Mabel asked suspiciously. No wind stirred where she was—admittedly, though, she stood on the edge of the woods, not up on an exposed hill. Leave that for later, though. She turned the phone, so Wendy could see the mushrooms. "What are these on the logs?"

"Get closer. You mean the mushrooms?" Wendy asked.

"Yeah. Are they poisonous?"

"Mm . . . no. Those are oyster mushrooms. You mean the brownish-white ones, right?"

"Right. Are they're edible?"

"Oh, yeah. Nutritious, too. Be sure that's what you got, though. Break a small piece of one cap off and smell it."

Mabel snapped off a dime-sized chunk and sniffed. "OK."

"What does it smell like?"

"Um . . . kinda hard to describe. Sort of spicy? A little like a red-hot, you know the candy? A little like, um, Dipper's dirty socks. Wait, wait, not like red-hots, more like licorice!"

Mabel could hear Dipper muttering in the background about the socks reference, but Wendy laughed. "Yeah, you got oyster mushrooms. They're OK to pick and eat. Want to know how to cook 'em?"

"No, they're not for us, they're for the Gnomes."

"OK. They're safe. While you're picking them, though, make sure you don't get into any poison oak."

"Gotcha. Go back to your so-called breeze, Wen! Thanks!" As Mabel put her phone away, she said, "I think Wendy and Dipper are doing some outdoor tussling! It's not that windy, but her hair was all tangled."

"Well, so is yours," Teek pointed out.

"But _we've_ been traipsing through the woods!" Mabel said. "Got a handkerchief or something?"

" _Traipsing?_ " Teek asked. "Um, handkerchief—yeah, here you go."

"Hold it like a little hammock. That's good." Mabel started to pick mushrooms. "Yeah, 'traipse.' It's a good word. It's like moseying, sauntering, ambling, you know, but sort of with an idea of slogging along, too. Move this way, I see another bunch."

"I don't know if this will hold many more," Teek said.

"Mm, yeah, I see. OK, let me tie the corners together . . . like this . . . and that . . .. Behold! A Gnome shopping bag!"

"But it's my handkerchief," Teek said.

"You'll get it back! Gnomes are crazy about mushrooms, but they've got a strange taboo against picking them! If some animal browses on mushrooms and drops some, Gnomes are all over it. Or if you want to trade with a Gnome, bring him a little basket of mushrooms and he'll give you the keys to his car!"

"Gnomes have cars?" Teek asked.

Mabel punched his shoulder. "Doy! It's a metaphor. It's like when the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the natives for thirty dollars or something."

"That . . . never happened," Teek said. "It's a myth. Anyway, it's twenty-four dollars, and the value was a lot more than that back then. And the natives they thought they were buying it from didn't even own it to begin with. And to them it was more like a rental than a purchase."

"Yeah, bait and switch, that's New York for you," Mabel said. "Which way, now?"

"That way," Teek said, checking his GPS app and pointing. "But if Gnomes love mushrooms so much, why don't they just pick them? There's plenty in the woods!"

"It's a taboo! Like I said. Like if Wendy loves Dip so much, and he loves her, why doesn't she just jump his bones?"

"I—what? Bones? Mabel, what does that even—I mean, I _think_ I know what you're talking about, but that's a weird thing to say!"

"It's old-timey slang I picked up from Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. "I see the smoke from the cooking pots! Where'd I put that acorn—oh, yeah, here it is! Come on!"

In another few minutes, they emerged from the forest into the clearing. The female Gnomes had evidently finished four more batches of their jam, because the collection of little earthenware jars had grown to a few hundred. "Hi again!" Mabel said. "Gnorma? Which one are you?"

"I'm right here," the head Gnomette said. "Did you see the Queen?"

"Oh, yeah, we did," Mabel told her. "Here. Jeff said to give you this to show that it's OK for us to have some jam." She held out the acorn, the point upwards, as Jeff had said.

"All right," Gnorma said, accepting the acorn even though she sounded uncertain.

"And as an extra added special gift, we brought you these!" Mabel said, untying the handkerchief and dumping the mushrooms onto a bare spot on one of the tables. "Ta-da!"

"Mushrooms!" Gnorma said.

The other Gnomes all stopped working and hurried over, crowding around and staring with greedy eyes. They were murmuring, "Niska, niska!" Mabel guessed that was their word for "mushrooms." Few Gnomes spoke English fluently, though Gnorma, like Jeff, seemed at ease with the language.

"What do you want?" Gnorma asked. "Anything! Name it!"

"One pot of each flavor of jam!" Mabel said. "That's all."

Gnorma said something in Gnomish, and a younger girl bustled around and brought over four of the little clay bottles. She said something, and Gnorma translated: "We tie little colored strings around the necks, see? Red is strongberry, blue is boobberry, purple is grope, yellow is graspberry. _Ek t_ _wicka_!"

" _Twicka, twicka_ ," murmured the younger Gnome, and she produced a Gnome-sized wooden spoon. Gnorma took it from her. "Here. You'll need this. When you try a jam, no more than one _twicka_! Sometimes young Gnomes eat too much, and it always makes them very sick!"

Mabel took the four tiny glazed earthenware pots—they seemed to be tightly stoppered, and none was leaking—and the miniature spoon. In human terms, it might have held somewhere between a quarter and an eighth of a teaspoon. "Thanks! The mushrooms are all yours! Nice doing business with you—hey, be sure to come to my birthday party next week, Monday, in the Mystery Shack! There's gonna be cake! And I'll make sure there are mushrooms, too!"

The Gnomes had closed in on the mushrooms, their hands opening and closing greedily. "Thank you!" Gnorma said. "I'll hand out the treats! Get back, everyone. I'll be fair!" In an aside, she said to Mabel, "You might want to go now. This could get ugly."

Teek and Mabel left, heading back toward the Shack—a long walk. Judging from the sun, it was early afternoon—maybe 12:30, maybe 1:00—and it would take more than an hour to get back on foot, even following the old lane where walking was relatively easy. At least the day was fine, warm but not too hot, and the lane offered plenty of shade.

"Wish we'd brought a picnic," Mabel muttered. "Well—at least I know where there's a pure water spring! We can get a drink, anyhow."

"Drink water that comes out of the _ground_?" Teek asked. He tended to be a little squeamish about things like that.

"It comes out of a _rock_ ," Mabel said. "It's just like well water. And it's pure. Wendy tested it to make sure it's safe. It's not far . . . over this way. Yeah, see down there?"

They could hear the tinkle of dripping water before they spotted it in the shadowed glen, half-hidden by a growth of rhododendrons. The water didn't gush but ran constantly from a vertical crack in a rock face, dropping down into a clear natural, small pool, and a rivulet wandered away from it, seeking the creek they had earlier passed, probably. Mabel cupped her hands under the miniature waterfall and sipped. "Come on, don't be chicken! It's good water."

Reluctantly, Teek followed her lead and found the water did taste good, bracing, cold, and just tinged, not unpleasantly, with minerals. When they had drunk as much of it as they wanted, they rested for a few minutes, sitting on a rounded boulder. Mabel had tied the pots of jam up in the handkerchief, and she took one out, the one with a red string around the neck. "Strawberry," she said, working the wooden plug loose and sniffing. "My favorite. What did I do with the little spoon? Here it is. Want some?"

"I don't think so," Teek said. "I'm not sure I trust it."

"Oh, come on!" Mabel said. "To listen to you, there's nothing safe to drink or eat if it doesn't come wrapped in plastic! Hey, I've eaten pine cones before! And wallpaper!"

"Just not hungry," Teek said.

Mabel held the miniature wooden spoon between thumb and forefinger and scooped out a tiny bit of the jam. "Well, I'm gonna sample this," she said. She put the little dollop of jam on her tongue and made a face like a wine connoisseur savoring a rare vintage. "Huh. It doesn't taste like strawberry. It's not even sweet, just sort of . . . bland. Kind of like unflavored gelatin and kind of like white glue. Not bad, but not what I expected." She replaced the stopper in the jar.

"We'd better go," Teek said. "You wanted to do a couple of other things this afternoon before I have to go home again."

"OK," Mabel said. "Let me rinse the spoon." She went over to the spring and took care of that, then stretched. "At least the rest's done me good. I feel great."

Teek stood up. "Let's go."

She grabbed him. "First I need another kiss!" she announced.

"Ugh—not so tight!" Teek said. "Mmnnph!"

Mabel broke the kiss with a loud smack, grinning. "Mm! Love it! That was a good one! Uh—Teek? You OK?"

Teek had turned faintly blue. "Can't breathe!" he gasped. "Put me down! Please!"

"Put you—oh, my gosh!"

Hurriedly, Mabel set Teek back on his feet. Without realizing it, without even knowing she was doing it, she had lifted him clear off the ground, she with her back bent, him with his toes dangling inches off the ground. "Whoo!" he gasped. "I think you bruised my ribs! What the heck, Mabel?"

"I didn't mean to!" she said. "Wait, let me try something. I won't hurt you. Relax."

She scooped him up, one arm behind his back, the other behind his bent knees, lifting him as if he were a baby, and held him in her arms. He didn't seem to weigh more than a pound or two. "Wow," she said, hefting him. "Amazing!"

"Mabel, what's going on?" Teek asked, his arm around her neck, holding on desperately.

"I don't know." She set him down, picked up a thirty-pound rock, and tossed it fifty feet into the woods. "Would you look at that? I don't know my own strength! Wait a minute. Strongberry jam. Strongberry! Teek, I think I've got superpowers!" She grinned. "Why—I could do anything I wanted with you! Play with you like a doll! An anatomically correct doll!"

"Mabel, you're scaring me," Teek said, backing away.

"Just messin' with you. But seriously, I feel great! Come on, let's go. I want to get back to the Shack." She set off at a trot.

And soon outdistanced Teek by a full quarter of a mile. She stopped to wait, impatiently, as he came jogging up. "Mabel—" he gasped, "not—so fast—I can't—keep up!"

"Oh, for crying out loud! Here!" She scooped him up again and, holding him in her arms, kissed him. "Comfy? Here we go!"

And carrying him without effort, she set off at a blinding pace for the Shack, feeling terrific.

And wondering what effect boobberry jam might have . . ..


	7. Chapter 7

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **7\. Mabel's In a Jam**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 4: Strong Bad**

Mabel ran Teek almost the whole way back to the Shack, with Teek clinging to her and repeating, "Really, I can walk."

"No problem!" she said. She took wonderful long-legged strides, thinking _This must be how Dipper and Wendy feel when they run—what do they call it? A runner's high! No wonder! I could get used to this!_

She felt amazing. As though her body were super-charged, as if she could run all the way around the world if she wanted to and could find dry footing for the whole distance, which she probably couldn't. She exulted in her strength and boundless energy.

But all at once, maybe a hundred yards from their goal, Mabel began to feel Teek's weight in her arms—as though she were carrying a giant balloon that was filling with water. The change started slowly, but someone turned the tap on until it was at full blast, and within a minute, Teek became too heavy for her.

Mabel's pace slowed, she staggered, and she gasped, "Wait, I have to put you down!"

It was a hard landing, and they both fell. "Oof!" Teek hit the ground and rolled a couple of feet. Fortunately, they were on the grassy edge of the Mystery Shack lawn, in the unmown strip between yard and woods, and the grass cushioned his fall. He pushed up to his knees. "Mabel, what got into you—no, wait, I know. The Gnome jam!"

Mabel had collapsed to sit on the grass, her arms braced on the ground and her shoulders drooping, as she breathed hard. Sweat popped out on her face. Her head bobbed, because the world was spinning around and around in a big green and blue blur. As it finally wobbled to rest, she took a deep breath. "It—it wore off! And now I feel all weak and _blarrrgggh_!" Her voice came out thin and panicky.

Teek stood up and brushed himself off. "It'll be OK. I'll take care of you. Here, I'll help you up." He stretched his arm toward her.

"Thanks." Mabel took his hand. He pulled her up, but her legs turned rubbery, and she couldn't even stand unaided. He held her up with an arm around her waist, and she clung to his shirt, wailing, "What's _wrong_ with me?"

"I think you overdid it," Teek said. "The jam made you push yourself too hard, maybe. Can you walk if I help?"

She tried, but her left foot crossed over her right and almost tangled her up and tripped her. "Don't think so! I feel so weird!"

Teek sounded as if he were scared but trying hard to conceal that: "Here, it's OK. Just sit back down. I'll run over and get the golf cart. You just wait here."

"Sit down? Wait? What else can I do?" she moaned. He eased her back down. She could just barely manage to sit upright, bracing her hands on the earth again, though her arms felt shaky. At least her dizziness was gone, but now she felt seasick, about to throw up. And not in a fun way, either. Teek ran to the Shack and turned the corner, heading for the place where Soos parked the golf cart.

Mabel suddenly didn't want him to go. Didn't want him to leave her. Something else was happening, too: Mabel's mood crashed.

 _No fair,_ she thought, her throat clenching and tears blurring her eyes _._ _Just a minute ago I felt great, and now I feel like I'm about to bust out crying!_

Everything weighed in on her—the knowledge that she had scared Teek, most of all, but also the sense that the summer was coming to an end, that most of what was supposed to be a teenage girl's best year, her sweet sixteen, would be spent not here with him, but six hundred miles away in boring old Piedmont, and shame that she had taken so much of the jam when she'd been warned—everything. It was her fault.

Mabel felt as if she was losing it.

Well—not losing _everything_ , because she still had the jam. She fished out the one tagged with the red string. "Just enough so I can get inside and rest in bed," she murmured. "Maybe I'll be OK in a few hours. But I don't want Teek and Soos to have to carry me inside!" Not after her amazing strength and the supreme confidence it had given her. This would be better.

She couldn't at the moment locate the tiny little wooden spoon, but she dipped her forefinger into the jam pot, got a good coating of the stuff, probably even more than she'd taken to begin with, and licked it off. Still not much taste.

"Just have to wait," she muttered as she re-stoppered and put away the pot. She heard the purr of the golf cart, and Teek at the wheel came rolling toward her, his face taut with concern.

The sight of him driving the cart made Mabel flash back to her very first encounter with the Gnomes. They'd come, five of them, disguised in the classic standing-on-shoulders-and-draped-with-a-coat way as her first summer crush ever, the mysterious, moody Norman, and in that guise the five had even dated her.

But then things turned bad—after she'd declined Jeff's offer of marriage and the Queenship of all the civilized Gnomes, the little guys had kidnapped her and tied her down to the ground like Gulliver in Lilliput, intending to force her into marrying them all and serving as their Queen.

Fortunately for Mabel, Dipper had borrowed the golf cart from Wendy and had come to his sister's rescue, piloting the small vehicle as the two of them fled from an all-out assault by the infuriated Gnomes, whose unsuspected talent was assembling themselves into a patchwork giant—though getting rid of her unwanted suitors with the leaf blower was Mabel's own idea.

"Ha! That was fun!" she murmured, feeling confidence flooding back into her. She jumped up, feeling full of energy—yes! Mabel was back, baby! Ha!

"You OK?" Teek asked, parking the golf cart close to her. "You shouldn't stand up without someone to lean on. Let me help—"

"Ha, ha! I don't need help! Watch this!" Mabel sprang past Teek, who stood blinking in alarm, and with almost no effort, she lifted the golf cart over her head. "Does _this_ look like I need help?"

"You ate _more_ jam?" Teek asked, his expression appalled. "That's not good for you!"

"Wrong!" Mabel said, setting the golf cart down so it jounced with the impact. "It's _great_ for me! I feel wonderful! Hey, I know what! Let's go visit Grenda. I want to challenge her to arm-wrestle! Just for fun!"

Teek held up his hands, cautioning her. "Mabel, you'd better calm down. You're going to crash again—"

"Never! I have a whole _jar_! And before it runs out, I'll round up every mushroom in the forest and trade the Gnomes for more!" Mabel didn't know how wild her eyes were looking, how manic her grin. "From now on, the kids in high school bow to _me_! Mabel the Great! I'll own every clique! I'll kick all the bullies and jerks out! I'll sit in the principal's office and _rule_! Bwah-ha-ha! Hey, I could even force my mom and dad to let me stay here with you!"

"I hope you're kidding," Teek said.

"Does _this_ look like I'm kidding?" Mabel grabbed him, slung him over her shoulder as easily as if he were a rolled-up blanket, and took off running toward town. On the highway she caught up with and passed a car doing about forty miles per hour. Behind them, it swerved and wound up in a ditch, though the driver faintly yelled behind them, "I'm OK!"

Teek, who bounced with her strides as she ran, his stomach jolting against her shoulder, kept pleading with her to stop. She didn't. They reached Grenda's house, and she finally set Teek down. Mabel, shifting from foot to foot as if she couldn't contain the energy inside her, rang the doorbell. "Coming!" Grenda called from inside.

The husky girl came out, and Mabel said, "Hey, Grenda! Want to arm-wrestle? I bet I can beat you!"

In her unusually low voice, Grenda said, "Aw, Mabel, no. You're my best friend! I don't want to humiliate you!"

"Don't do it," Teek told both girls, shaking his head.

"Come on, just for fun," Mabel urged in a sweet voice, grinning.

"Mabel," Grenda said, cocking her head suspiciously, "are you OK? You look kind of flushed. What's wrong with you?"

Mabel grabbed Grenda, one of her best friends, by her upper arms and yelled right in her face. "I wish people would stop asking me that. I'm fine! Now, come on! I wanna arm-wrestle _right now!"_

"OK," Grenda said. "But tell me if it starts hurting. Um, come with me."

They went to the back yard, sat at the patio table, and on the first try, Mabel slammed Grenda's arm down. "Hey!" Grenda said. "Ow! What was that?"

"It's the new, improved Super Mabel!" Mabel announced. "Hey, find me a bully. Let's go find the worst bully in your school! I feel like beating somebody up!"

"Mabel," Teek said, "calm down. Come on, this isn't you!"

Laughing like a maniac, Mabel said, "Oh, yes it is! Hey, Grenda, did you and Marius ever try it like this?" She grabbed a protesting Teek again, spun him around, holding him by his upper chest, lifted him high in the air, upside-down, and kissed him hard on the mouth. "Mmmm-wah!" She rubbed her nose against his topsy-turvy one. "How do you like kissing when you're dipsy-doo, Teek? Want to try it again with more tongue?"

"No, thank you," Teek said, his voice coming out in almost a duck quack because of his position. "Mabel, you're scaring me."

"Me, too!" Grenda said.

Mabel spun Teek right side up and set him up on his feet. "Aw, you're no fun! I know! You can have some of the jam, too! That'll pep you up. And then together we'll rule Gravity Falls!"

"I don't _want_ to rule Gravity Falls," Teek protested.

She hugged him, making him turn red. "Aw, my little Teeky! I'll do whatever you want, then! What _do_ you want, Teek?"

Teek rubbed his arms. "Uh, right now? To get home alive."

Mabel let go of him and tottered around in a small circle, laughing her head off. "Good one, Teek!"

Teek surreptitiously took his phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed.

Over in the corner of the yard, where Mabel was straightening some bent fence posts, Grenda was trying to calm her friend down, but Mabel finished with the last post and then ran around the house, Grenda jogging after her. Teek followed.

Dipper answered his phone: "Hi, Teek, what's up?"

"Mabel," Teek said. "She's in trouble. You remember you told me about the Smile Dip thing?"

"Oh, man!" Dipper groaned. "Did she get into that stuff again?"

"It's worse, it's something she got from the Gnomes," Teek said. He stopped in his tracks. "Dipper? You need to see this. I'm gonna go to face time."

"Got it."

"Look at this." Teek turned the phone so the camera was on Mabel.

Who was standing at the front of Grenda's dad's car. Which she had lifted a foot off the ground. Reared up and resting on its back tires, the car threatened to roll, but Mabel held it. After pumping iron with it three times, she set the front of the car down again.

"That was fun! Let's go find us a bully!" Mabel yelled, punching the air. "And then, Grenda, you and me are gonna try us some Boobberry jam! Boobies for everybody, ah-ha-ha! Unless it does something else! Hah!"

Teek could hear Dipper, his voice coming sharp over the phone's speaker: "We'll get there as fast as we can!"


	8. Chapter 8

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **8\. Mabel's in a Jam**

 **(August 24, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 5: Ready to Rumble**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Monday, afternoon—Wendy and I knew we had to hurry, but based on what Teek had said, we also had to make at least one stop. Wendy warped her car down that narrow, root-bumpy, overgrown lane like a pro—I couldn't have done it. Heck, it was hard doing it in the golf cart that time!_

 _Luckily, the Gnomes heard the engine and began to pop out of the trees to see what was invading their territory. I rolled down the window and yelled, "It's Dipper Pines! I have to see Jeff right away! I need his help!"_

 _Now, since the Gnomes started to join in the everyday society of Gravity Falls, there are three things they won't turn down: Pie. Mushrooms. And a plea for help. They have some paranormal way of their own for communicating, and before we got to the only wide place in the lane, we saw Jeff, the badger queen, and Shmebulock standing waiting for us. Wendy braked, I jumped out, and in only a few words I told Jeff what had happened._

 _He slapped his forehead. "I said just a lick! I should have been more specific!" he said. He sighed. "Shmebulock, you take charge of getting the Queen home. Stop at the work site first and appoint—oh, heck, why not? Appoint Steve the temporary foreman."_

" _Shmebulock!" Shmebulock protested as he took the Queen's leash._

" _Yeah, I know he's the most incompetent. That's why I'm promoting him. He'll probably cause less trouble if he's just giving orders. Tell everybody else to ignore him and do the job the way they know how. I'll be back as soon as I can get back."_

 _I helped Jeff into the car, and he sat beside me and next to Wendy. "First time I've had a real ride in one of these," he said. "I've been on trains before, but I've always wanted to ride in a car! With a beautiful girl! Uh, one of you IS a girl, right?"_

 _Wendy did a six-point turnaround in the narrow lane. I explained that Wendy was indeed a beautiful girl. Jeff said, "It's hard to tell with biggers. But I'm glad it's her, 'cause I'm more attracted to her than to you, Dipper. Wendy, let me just say hubba-hubba."_

 _He's as bad as Mabel at coming up with these weird old words. I don't know where he picks them up. I think in the off season he plays cards with Grunkle Stan._

 _Jeff liked the ride, and his only complaint was that with his seatbelt buckled, he couldn't see much. He enjoyed the race back down the lane, with all its bumps, the way a human kid likes a roller-coaster ride._

 _As soon as I had good cell reception, I called Teek. "Where are you?"_

" _At the high school!" Teek said, sounding sort of frayed. "Athletic field! Mabel's set a speed record on the track, and we're trying to put her sneakers out. They caught fire!"_

 _Oh, man. I told Wendy, and she bounced up the hill onto the Shack parking lot, raced down the driveway, and made the turn for town. Teek filled me in on what had happened, and as soon as I turned off my phone, I relayed to Jeff what Teek had said about the jams that Mabel had picked up from the girl Gnomes._

 _"A pot each of all four jams? They're not meant for humans!" Jeff said. "I told her, just a tiny lick—and I meant a Gnome-sized lick! She got four whole pots?"_

" _And she's sampled the strawberry one twice," I said._

" _We don't have strawberry jam," Jeff said. "Well, we do, but it's strictly a funeral jam. It just demonstrates mourning, it doesn't give you any powers. From what you say, she must've eaten some strongberry." He emphasized the pronunciation._

" _And what does it do?" Wendy asked._

" _Gives you terrific strength and stamina. But then you crash. The only cure's to sleep it off, usually for a Gnome about three hours of sleep. With the amount Mabel ate, I don't know, it might take a whole day and a night. I just hope she doesn't sample any of the rest!"_

" _What are they?" I asked._

" _Well, let's see. Today the ladies were making graspberry jam, grope jam, and boobberry jam."_

" _What do they do?" Wendy asked._

" _Graspberry just makes you really adept at climbing trees. Your feet get thumbs, and you grow a temporary tail. One dose lasts for a day. That's for when we're building summer nests in trees. Grope—uh, how old are you?"_

" _Old enough!" Wendy snapped._

" _OK, OK. Grope makes boy and girl Gnomes feel, uh—frisky? Is that a word, frisky? It gets them really interested in reproduction. Enthusiastic about the whole process. And able to do it for hours. It's what young Gnomes eat on their wedding night, if you get my drift. And it helps the girl Gnomes have babies. They're more likely to become mothers if they eat a little of the jam before, you know."_

" _God, I hope we get to her before she tastes that!" I said._

 _Wendy asked, "And boobberry?"_

" _Um, teen girl Gnomes take that. It makes them grow. Not taller. But it's boobberry, so they, uh, get bigger. Uh, in certain places."_

" _Dibs on that when we find her!" Wendy said._

 _I said, "No way!"_

 _Wendy laughed a little. "Just messin' with you. There's the school."_

* * *

Wendy slewed the car around in a skidding park that raised a drift of dust, and they all jumped out, including Jeff, who, like all Gnomes, could leap astonishing distances and land without hurting himself. Except this time. He tripped on a pebble and bumped his nose on the curb, which led to some arcane cursing in Gnomish, but he was otherwise all right.

They found Mabel, Teek, and Grenda on the athletic field. Mabel was barefoot, her ruined and blackened shoes lying off to one side near a hose. "Come on!" she was yelling. "It's just for fun! Both of you at once!"

"Oh, no, we're too late!" Dipper groaned.

"I can wrestle both of you and pin you both!"

"Maybe not," Wendy said. "Mabel's barefoot."

"Her shoes caught fire," Dipper said, pointing.

"Oh, man! Her new ones?"

"Don't think so. Those are so burned I can't tell. She and Teek went for a walk, though, so probably not. Her old sneakers, I'd guess."

"Jeff, what's wrong with her?" Wendy asked. "She doesn't even sound like herself."

"She's got jam rage," Jeff said. "Happens to Gnomes, too, if they eat more than one serving of strongberry. This is going to be ticklish." He glanced around at Wendy and Dipper. "Uh—I'm going to try something, but none of this goes anywhere, OK? I could be deposed or worse for what I'm going to try."

Wendy mimed zipping her lip. When Jeff looked baffled, Dipper said, "She means we won't say a word."

"OK," Jeff said. "Let's go."

He led the way. When the three had gone halfway to the group, Mabel noticed them. "Brobro!" she yelled. "The awesomest thing has happened. I'm Super Mabel now! Come on and wrestle me!"

"Hello, darling!" Jeff yelled.

Mabel evidently had overlooked him. "Jeff? Hi! You guys make _splendiferous_ jam!"

"Yes, we do. Glad you liked it, my love."

Mabel held up her arms like a bodybuilder flaunting her muscles. "It gave me super— _wait, what_? What you talking about? Darling? Love?"

Jeff got to within a few feet of her and knelt on the grass. "Oh, Mabel! I wish you had married us back when you first came to Gravity Falls! I lost my heart to you. There's a reason why I never took a Gnome wife. I have to admit it—I'm still in love with you!"

Grenda looked at Mabel. "Want me to stomp him into the ground for you?"

Mabel waved her off. "Look, Jeff, I know I'm irresistible, but don't you remember? It would never work out. I'm a girl, you're a Gnome . . . I _like_ you, but I don't _love_ you."

"Hmm," Jeff said. "It's so hard to give you up. Send me away with at least a little something to cheer me up. Could we be smooch buddies?"

"I don't think so," Mabel said. "Teek wouldn't like that."

Teek shook his head, then when Wendy gave him a side-eye, he nodded. "Uh—at least hear him out," Teek suggested.

Jeff said, "When we Gnomes court other Gnomes, we have a little ritual. Let's you and me wrestle. If you pin me, then it's all off. If I pin you, I get that one single kiss you never gave me—yeah, I remember the leaf blower! That thing sucked!"

Mabel laughed. "Oh, man, Jeff, you don't want to do that! You have no idea how strong I am now!"

"I'll take that chance," Jeff said. "Dipper, would you hold my hat? One fall! Just one fall! And it's all for love!"

Mabel shrugged, grinning ominously. "I've always been a romantic girl! OK, but I may smoosh you! Yell loud when I hurt you!" She started toward him in a crouch.

"Hold on, hold on," Jeff said. "The ritual says I get a spoonful of strongberry jam first. Got any?"

Mabel stopped. "What?"

"You've had some. The ritual says the guy and girl both get one spoonful. Then the wrestling begins. Come on, it's Gnome tradition! We good on that?"

"Teek," Mabel said, "get the jam from my bag. It's the jar with the red string."

Teek rummaged and found the earthenware pot and handed it to Jeff. "Spoon?" Jeff asked.

"Uh, it's probably down in here somewhere—"

"Let me look," Wendy said, reaching for the bag. She glanced at Mabel. "Guys and purses, huh, Mabes?"

"Tell me about it!" Mabel said.

Wendy took about three seconds. "This little wooden thing?"

"That's it," Jeff said. As he faced her and reached for the jar and spoon, he mouthed, _Keep the bag!_ Then he held the jar up, murmured a Gnomish incantation, and said, "To the winner belongs the kiss or the refusal!" He scooped up a scant spoonful—a tiny amount—of the jam and ate it. "Give me a minute," he said. "You others, step back and give us room. Dipper, don't let my hat touch the ground! No matter what happens, hold onto my hat!"

"OK," Dipper said, mystified. Evidently Gnomes had traditions about hats, too. The others stepped back—they were standing on the football field, though the chalk lines had faded completely out over the summer—and Jeff went through a stretching routine.

Then the Gnome said, "Ready! Uh—Teek? Teek, count down. Start with a big number. Three?"

"Three . . . two . . . one!" Teek said.

Mabel startled Dipper. She leaped like a leopard, flinging herself on Jeff—except the Gnome wasn't there when she pounced. He had zipped to one side. He danced around with his arms spread out. "Come on, come on, show me what you got!" he taunted. "I'm so gonna kiss you!"

Mabel laughed and approached him more slowly. She reached for him—and he seized her wrist, set his legs, and threw her.

"Hey!" Dipper said. "Don't hurt her!" Mabel had turned a complete somersault and landed on her back.

"Can't hurt her when she's like this!" Jeff yelled. "Whoa!"

Mabel had surged up, grabbed his leg, and swung him overhead three times before slamming him down. He whuffed as he crashed to earth, but the moment he hit, he rolled to one side just as Mabel tried to pin him down with her hand.

To her surprise, Jeff climbed her arm and scurried under her hair in the back.

"Come out from there!" Mabel yelled.

"Maiden, do you yield?" Jeff yelled from somewhere in the brown thicket.

"Never!"

Wendy said to Dipper, "If I wasn't worried about Mabel, this would be so funny!"

Mabel looked as if she were wrestling herself, reaching back with both flailing arms, spinning around, doing cartwheels, trying to dislodge the stubborn Gnome. Grenda asked anxiously, "Can you fix her?"

"We're trying," Dipper told her. "Uh-oh!"

Mabel had come up with the idea of running backward at the flagpole, obviously intending to squish Jeff. She hurled herself through the air, hit hard enough to bend the metal flagpole back about ten degrees—and realized that Jeff had dropped off at the last moment. Now he was in front of her again.

"You are so gonna regret this!" Mabel said with a vicious edge of humor that Dipper had never heard in her voice. She lunged again.

And missed again. Jeff streaked over and grabbed her left ankle. She picked up her foot and tried to kick him loose.

He wrapped his legs around her ankle, dangled, and with his hands started to tickle the sole of her bare foot. "No fair!" she yelled. She hopped backward, lost her footing, and fell on her back.

Immediately Jeff scrambled up, grabbed both her ears, and said, "I win!" He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth.

"Blarrggh!" Mabel yelled. As Jeff leapt free, she started to rub her mouth. "I'm gonna murder you!" She got up.

Teek stepped in. "Please don't," he said.

"I'm going to totally stomp—" Mabel blinked. In a voice more like herself, she asked, "What? Why?"

Teek put his hands on her shoulders. "Don't do it, Mabel. Because I'm asking you."

Mabel sounded pouty: "But I'm stronger than he is! I know I am!"

"Yes, but the girl I love wouldn't fight unfairly," Teek said. "And she'd graciously admit defeat."

"Defeat? He cheated! He tickled my—wait, what?"

"Mabel Pines," Teek said, "I love you."

Her mouth fell open, and Teek took advantage to pull her close and kiss her. She melted, wrapping her arms around him.

"She's losing it," Jeff said, still panting. "I could feel her starting to weaken. You're going to have to help her soon."

The kiss ended. Mabel said, "Wah-wah-wow! I feel so . . . so dizzy . . .."

And she collapsed into Teek's arms, a blissful smile on her face.

"Guys!" Teek said, struggling to support the limp girl.

"I got this," Grenda told him. She picked up a loose, unconscious Mabel. "What now?"

"My car's in the lot," Wendy said. "Jeff, what do we do?"

"Keep her in bed for a whole day," Jeff said as he took his cap back from Dipper and pulled it on. "Keep her warm. Make her drink lots of water. I don't know—how much do humans usually drink at one time?"

"Uh, eight, twelve ounces," Dipper said. He held his hands a few inches apart. "A glass about so big."

"I would be up all night," Jeff said. "OK, you're bigger, so it makes sense. Make her drink at least one whole glassful of water every time she wakes up. No solid food until tomorrow, but lots of water. She'll doze and wake and probably won't be able to get out of bed without help until some time tomorrow, so she'll need help, uh, getting rid of the water, let's say. Giant girl, carry her to the car. Teek, you come, too. Is there room for everybody?"

"That's OK," Grenda said. "I want to walk back home. I need some time to process all this."

"Don't judge Mabel by what she did today," Jeff said. "The jam makes even tough Gnomes go a little nuts. It's no wonder a frail human couldn't handle it. Even one as wonderful as Mabel."

"Oh, she's still my best friend!" Grenda said. "But—nobody's ever beat me at arm-wrestling before! It's a lot to think about."

At the Shack, Jeff said he didn't need a ride back to the forest. Gnomes had their own paranormal ways of moving fast when on home ground. He waved goodbye and left them, immediately vanishing in the brush.

Soos came out and carried Mabel to her room, and Wendy tucked her in. Mabel looked completely exhausted, her face slack and pale, her skin a little clammy. "Uh," Teek said, "could I just sit with her? I'll leave the door open."

"Sure, dawg," Soos said. "What happened to her?"

"She got herself into a jam," Wendy said. "She's all tired out, not sick, and she'll be OK, but we have to take care of her until tomorrow."

Back in the parlor, Dipper said, "Whoosh! Mabel's got to learn to watch out for things like that. She eats anything at least once, and she has kind of an addictive personality. Oh, hey, you didn't give the jam back to Jeff!"

"Forgot," Wendy said. "I'll take care of it, though. I'll make sure that Mabes doesn't get her hands on any more of it, too."

"Get rid of the stuff," Dipper said. "Throw it in the Bottomless Pit."

"Thought I'd hang onto the boobberry," Wendy said. "Wouldn't you like me with a figure more like Pacifica's?"

Dipper made a face. "Honestly? You can't improve perfection."

"Aw." She ruffled his hair and kissed his birthmark. "Dipper—you're really learning how to make a girl feel good."

"Well," he said, blushing a little, "I'm trying!"


	9. Chapter 9

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **9\. Mabel's in a Jam**

 **(August 25, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 6: Got to be a Morning After**

Mabel felt something warm and damp on her cheek. "Stop it, Waddles!" she murmured. "You only get a lick _after_ I finish eating." Then something dimly broke through the fog she felt she was in. "Uh, Waddles?" She opened her eyes. "Teek?"

He smiled at her. "Hi. How are you feeling?" He had been sponging her face with a warm washcloth.

"I feel fi—no, I don't," she said. Mabel had started to sit up but flopped back loosely on the bed. "Ugh! What _happened_ to me?"

"Gnome jam," Teek said. "That was yesterday. Here, drink some water."

He'd put ice in the glass and, considerately, a flexible straw. Mabel sipped. "Yuck! My mouth tastes the way a cat litter box smells!"

"Then I'll wait to kiss you," Teek said. "Don't you remember yesterday?"

She frowned. "Um, sort of. Mushrooms? Something about mushrooms? And strawberry jam?"

"Strongberry," Teek said. "It made you Super Mabel."

"Oh . . . yeah," Mabel said, struggling to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of her memory. "I—I carried you! I picked you up and ran with you! That was fun."

"Maybe it was for _you_ ," Teek said. He took the empty glass from her, the few half-melted ice cubes rattling. "You're going to be weak for a day or two. It's OK for you to eat something now if you feel like—"

"What . . . time is it?" Mabel asked.

"Nearly nine. Wendy picked me up early this morning when she came to work. I've been sitting with you for about two and a half hours."

"Aw, Teek!" She reached for his hand. Tried to. Her own arm flopped and fell back. "What's wrong with me?"

"I told you, you overdid it," Teek said. "You were running your engine at like a hundred and eighty per cent. Now you have to rest and build up your strength again."

"I could just have some more jam," Mabel said reasonably.

"No, you couldn't," Teek told her. "First because next time it might kill you, and second because there's no more left. We got rid of it. It's meant for Gnomes, not people. You understand that, don't you?"

"I . . . yeah, I suppose," Mabel said. "Hey, stop. Where are you going?"

"I'm right here," Teek said, but he receded into the distance until everything was gray and Mabel went to sleep again.

* * *

"You sure you want me to handle this?" Wendy asked.

Dipper nodded. "I like Jeff and all, but he's a Gnome. He plays mind games with me. He really likes pretty girls, though, so he'll be more honest with you."

Wendy laughed the way Mabel did when being dismissive. "Pffft! Yeah, right. He didn't even know if I was the girl or you were!"

"Look at it from his perspective," Dipper told her. "When you're that short, all the big people look like knees." They got out of the car and he called, "Gnomes! We need to speak with Jeff! We have a gift for your people!"

They didn't hear anything, but within a minute, Jeff popped out of the foliage of an oak, about twenty feet above the ground. "We aren't selling jam today!" he called down.

Dipper nodded at Wendy. She yelled up, "We don't want any, Jeff! Matter of fact, we brought back the jars that Mabel got. We want to return them to you. And we've brought enough mushrooms for a feast!"

"Say no more!"

Jeff vanished, leaves rustled, and then he popped up on the ground near them, rubbing his hands. "Mushrooms, did you say?"

Dipper took the car keys from Wendy and popped the trunk. Inside were four grocery bags stuffed with mushrooms—all the grocer had in stock. "Here you go," he said, taking them out and setting them on the ground.

" _Store_ mushrooms?" Jeff asked, drooling. "Who do you want killed?"

"Nobody, just the opposite," Wendy said, grinning.

Jeff nodded, looking wise. "Oh, you two want a baby! Tell you what, each of you take one little lick of Grope Jam—"

"No, no, no!" Dipper said. "Wendy means we want to save Mabel's life by giving the jam back to you Gnomes."

"Oh," Jeff said. "Sorry. Excuse me, let me send for some help with these mushrooms." He whistled shrilly, and a squirrel chattered. "Hey, Grover!" Jeff yelled, "Go find Shmebulock and tell him to bring a work crew of eight trusted men. Just tell him they gotta be guys that can control themselves. Bring them here!"

The squirrel flickered away through the treetops. Dipper said, "I'm going to sit in the car, Jeff. Wendy's got the jams. She wants to talk to you. Be nice—she's my girlfriend!"

"I'm always nice!" Jeff objected. But the moment Dipper closed the car door, he said to Wendy, "Why not try dating an older guy like me, Wendy? Might be a nice change!"

"It's a committed relationship," Wendy said. She handed Jeff a smaller bag. "Here are the jams. Check and make sure that Mabel didn't stash any. She took a couple spoonfuls of the strongberry, though."

Jeff obligingly uncorked and inspected the jars before sealing them again. "Looks like that's all she took," he said. "The other three are full, the wax layer unbroken. I'll make sure these don't fall into human hands again. Or Mabel's hands, either. Hey, if she likes Gnome products, I can arrange to get her a little jar of honey. It's plain honey, no magic ingredients or mystical powers, but it's top quality, and I can get it for her. I know a bee."

"That would be nice," Wendy said. "Maybe you can bring it to the birthday party next week."

Jeff snapped his fingers. "Of course! A birthday present! We'll bring two jars, one for Dipper and one for Mabel! Great idea." He sighed. "I'm going to miss those two when they leave for the fall and winter. It's always interesting when they're around."

"They'll be back," Wendy said. "Uh—don't want to insult you guys or anything, but how are the Gnomes set for cold weather?"

"We're fine," Jeff said. "We're almost stocked with everything we need. We've got the shallow burrows ready, just under the frost line. Worst comes to worst, if it's a really hard winter, Soos always helps us out."

"He's gonna be away for a couple of weeks after Christmas, though," Wendy said. "Uh, you know what Christmas is, don't you?"

"When humans light up the big tree in the park, sure," Jeff said. "We bring the Gnome kids to see it."

"OK, so right after that time, Soos and his family are going to be away for two weeks, but I'll be staying in the Shack to keep an eye on things. If you need anything, just come and if Soos isn't there, you can see me, all right?"

"Thank you, we will," Jeff said. "But really, since we went into the pest control and disposal business, we're doing great. Make a little money, buy some emergency rations, some heavy fabric for warm clothes, it's easier these days." He looked around. "What's keeping Shmebulock?"

The squirrel, or another one, chattered from a tree.

"Thanks!" Jeff yelled. To Wendy, he explained, "The scout says they're coming. They should be here in ten minutes. If you'd hang around until they get here, so no feral Gnomes try to hijack the mushrooms, though, that'd be great."

"Dip and I will wait. Feral Gnomes? Those are the guys who live in the deep tunnels?" Wendy asked.

"Ferals? Yeah. We all used to live underground, you know, hundreds of years back. But then we dug too deep and the Mole Men invaded. They eat Gnomes. Came close to wiping us out. We fled to the surface and took to the trees then. The civilized Gnomes are the forest clan. Of course, every year a few of them slip off to go into the tunnels, get back to nature, that kind of thing. They don't usually last very long." He smiled. "You know something, though? Last few years, more Ferals are coming up to join us than vice-versa. Their lives are still hard and dangerous. Used to be, every winter a few dozen of us civilized Gnomes would freeze or starve or get eaten by a bear or something. Since Weirdmageddon, though, that hardly ever happens. In fact, I can only remember one Gnome who got eaten by an animal in all that time. And he was eaten by a goat."

"A _goat_?" Wendy asked. "The one that hangs around the shack? Gompers?"

Jeff shrugged. "I'm not on a first-name basis. But a goat! Imagine! A goat eats a guy!"

"Yeah," Wendy agreed. "That's bizarre, man. Goats are herbivores."

"Oh," Jeff said. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

Jeff said, "The guy who got eaten. His name was Herb."

* * *

After what seemed like a few minutes, Mabel opened her eyes again. "Dozed off there," she murmured. "What's that?"

"Brought you a tray," Teek said. "Two boiled eggs, whole-grain toast, ordinary plain old strawberry jam. And a glass of milk."

"I am kinda hungry," Mabel said, and he helped her sit up in bed. She fumbled with the fork.

"Here," he said. "I'll feed you."

"I'm not helpless," she complained as she slipped sideways and plopped onto the bed.

"Let me help anyhow," Teek said, pulling her back up and bracing her with a couple of pillows. "Here, open up."

One egg, half a glass of milk, and half of the toast later, Mabel began to be able to coordinate enough to finish eating by herself. "Man, that stuff really messed me up!" she said. "I'd better hurry and take my shower and get to work."

"What time do you think it is?" Teek asked.

"I don't know, nine-thirty, ten?"

He laughed and gently wiped some runny yolk from her chin with a napkin. "It's five in the afternoon. You slept all day."

She gave him a pop-eyed look of astonishment. "Yikes!"

"It's OK, you needed it," Teek said.

"Uh—I hate to be _that girl_ , but I kinda gotta go to the bathroom," Mabel said, squirming.

"I'll help you up."

He did, and Mabel found she could not only stand, but holding onto him, walk—well, shuffle—across the hall to the downstairs bathroom. Soos had equipped it with grab bars just in case Abuelita needed them (she didn't), and using them, Mabel took care of business herself. But she was happy when Teek helped her out, put an arm around her waist, and walked her back to her bedroom.

She lay down, gasping. "I hope I snap back soon!"

He sat on the edge of the bed. "You will. You always do. You're Mabel Pines!"

"Yeah . . .." she gave him an oddly shy smile. "Uh, I seem to remember—you saying something that we said we weren't ready to say. Did you?"

He smiled. "I love you, Mabel Pines," Teek said. "Yeah. I did. I do." He took her hand. "You scared the crap out of me yesterday—by slinging me over your shoulder and running around, challenging Grenda to an arm wrestling match—"

"I did _what_?"

"You won, too," Teek said. "Grenda and Candy are coming over this evening. Grenda will tell you. Anyway, yeah, you terrified me. But then I realized what scared me most was the fear that I might—lose you. And that made me realize that I love you."

She squeezed his hand. "That—it really, and I never—oh, Teek! Uh—kiss me?"

He did, on the cheek. "You'll have to brush your teeth before we do anything more exciting," he said. "That jam reeks!"

She smiled uncertainly. She whispered, "Teek? You won't be mad?"

"At you? No, I couldn't be."

"Umm . . . I'm gonna say it. Teek—I'm not ready to tell you I love you yet. I don't mean to hurt you! I like you so much! But—it's just that—I have to be _sure_ , Teek. Are you mad?"

"No, not at all," he said. "You're worth waiting for. But I do love you. Until you're sure, I'll settle for your liking me."

"A whole lot," Mabel insisted.

"A whole lot, then. Sounds like you're pretty close."

"Yeah. I—oh, damn it!"

Teek laughed in a shocked way. "Mabel!"

"Hey, I'm almost sixteen, OK? Sometimes it's hard not to swear. Look, I _want_ to be in love with you, Teek! I'm pretty close. I feel something with you I've never felt with any other guy. I _think_ I'll get there. Will you be patient with me?"

"You know it," he said.

"I mean, I know I can be random and goofy and I have mood swings and all that crap. It must be hard to put up with me sometimes. The thing is—I don't want to hurt you. So just ride it out, OK? We'll be back next summer, if not before. Maybe by then it'll all be straight in my head."

"In your heart," Teek said.

"That, too. I really want a kiss."

He stood up. "Bathroom's that way. Toothpaste and mouthwash are in the medicine cabinet. You do that for me, I'll kiss you hard enough to knock your socks off."

She giggled. "I'm not wearing socks."

"Then I'll try for something else," he said, and then turned red.

That made her laugh. Teek wasn't all that good with teasing innuendo, but he made up for it with his expertise at kissing. Mabel let him help her get out of bed and this time she walked on her own. A little shaky, but she walked unaided.

She saw Wendy and Dipper in the hall, and when they asked how she felt, she said, "I'm a lot better. I do want to talk to you both, soon as I brush my teeth and take a shower. But first, before that—I've got something I gotta do with Teek!"

Wendy looked knowing, Dipper a little apprehensive. But they didn't ask questions or say anything to discourage her.

 _I'm lucky to have this family,_ Mabel thought.

So, she went and brushed her teeth and freshened up, and before joining her brother, Wendy, Grenda, Candy, and the Ramirez family for dinner—she and Teek sat side by side and furthered their understanding.


	10. Chapter 10

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **10\. Who's Minding the Kids?**

 **(August 26, 2015)**

Little Soos could walk and he could sort of talk (though Dipper often had to rely on Mabel to tell him that 'Mumper gah goona bow' meant 'My little car is under the refrigerator, and I would be obliged to you if you would get it out again'). The walking bit meant that keeping track of him sometimes proved hard.

Harmony, just three months old, still was relatively easy to take care of: a bottle, a diaper change, and a little singing, no matter how off-key, and she was ready for a nap. Both were usually happy babies, Harmony giggling at the least amusing thing and Little Soos especially prone to outbursts of laughter for no apparent reason. They rarely cried, unless Harmony had a diaper emergency or Little Soos bumped his noggin, which he was prone to do—he loved to run under things and sometimes forgot to duck.

On Wednesday, Melody, Soos, and Abuelita had an errand to run—Soos's aunt, who lived near Portland, had had an emergency appendectomy, and they drove over in the early afternoon to help prepare the house for her homecoming from the hospital. Cousin Reggie was the designated driver, so it was up to the three of them, plus Reggie's dad, to get the place back in order.

Soos appointed Wendy temporary acting full-time manager, and she, Dipper, and Mabel, with some help from Teek until he had to go home—his grounding sentence would end on Saturday—ran the Shack. That wasn't hard. Wednesdays tended to be slack, and between them they covered all the bases. Teek even drove one half-full tram load of tourists on the Mystery Trail tour, though he had a little stage fright and reeled off the spiel in a voice that sounded comically high-pitched.

Soos checked in at six to make sure that the Shack was still standing. Dipper reassured him. "Well, dawgs, the doctor was late on his rounds this afternoon, so my aunt won't get out of the hospital until tomorrow morning, but that's OK. We'll have the house all cleaned up for her, and we can come back tonight when that's done."

"If you want to stay over and see her—"

"Nah, that's OK," Soos said. "We visited her for about, like, an hour or some deal when we first got here. Everything went fine, the operation and all, and she doesn't feel all that bad. It's probably better if she's just with her own family tomorrow. She doesn't need a whole lot of excitement, just rest."

Soos went on to estimate that wouldn't be back until either shortly before or shortly after midnight, depending on how much they had to do at the house. Mabel had volunteered to babysit, together with Dipper, but she still hadn't fully regained her own strength from the infamous Gnome Jam Incident, and watching after the kids from three to six PM had already tired her out.

As soon as they closed the Shack, Wendy hurried home to prepare a quick dinner for her dad and brothers, and as soon as that was done, she returned to the Shack to share babysitting duties. "Got my little brothers to wash the dishes!" she announced as she came in.

"Great!" Mabel said from where she sat with Little Harmony in her lap. "It's about time they took some responsibility!"

"I know, right?" Wendy asked. "Of course, tomorrow I'm gonna have to go along behind them and re-wash about half the dishes, but it's a start."

Wendy took Harmony, and Dipper played with Little Soos—who liked music and enjoyed Dipper's guitar playing, though he kept wanting to reach up and help. "We ought to get him a guitar of his own," Mabel said, yawning.

"Yeah, or a ukulele," Dipper told her. "You can get a kid's version. I'll check it out before we have to go home."

Mabel, who was still sleep-starved, conked out around seven-thirty on the sofa. Wendy rocked the baby and gave her the evening bottle; Dipper sat with Little Soos on his knee and read him his bedtime story, an epic about a lost baby duckling who couldn't remember what species he was or what his mother looked like. The baby duck made a few embarrassing mistakes:

* * *

"Mama?" asked the duckling.

But the cow said, "Mooo!"

* * *

"Booo!" repeated Little Soos happily. Dipper turned the page.

He read aloud, "The cow was not the fluffy duckling's mother. Then Fluffy Duckling saw an animal that was covered with beautiful white curly wool. 'Mama?' asked the duckling."

Giggling, Little Soos said, "Baaa!"

"Hey, that's right!" Dipper said. "A sheep says 'baaa.' Good for you, Soosie!"

They tracked through all the possible duck-mothers: the donkey, the turkey, the horsie, the dog, the cat, and at last the real mother, who, not so shockingly, proved to be a white duck.

"Qua!" Little Soos exclaimed happily when he saw the last page. "Qua! Qua!"

"Yes, I am your mother!" Dipper read. "Quack! Quack!"

"Oh, Mama!" Little Soos said before Dipper could read the last words on the page. "I love you!" Then, as if by automatic reflex, he yawned.

However, Dipper knew from past experience that Little Soos expected closure, so he quietly read, "And Fluffy Duckling said, 'Oh, Mama! I love you.' The end."

By that time Harmony was sound asleep. Wendy put her in the nursery and turned on the baby monitor. Dipper supervised as Little Soos got ready for bed, putting on his jammies and brushing his two teeth. Together Wendy and Dipper tucked him in, and Wendy kissed the toddler on the forehead. "Sleep sound, little guy!"

Back in the parlor, they relaxed on the floor in front of the TV, turned low so it wouldn't wake up Mabel—though to do that, the TV probably would have to explode. When Mabel went to sleep, she meant business.

"I think you're gonna be a good dad one day," Wendy said softly.

Dipper leaned against her. "It's scary just to think about that."

Wendy nudged him. "Yeah? Try thinking about a kid growing in your tummy for nine months and then pushing him out into the world!"

"I see your point," Dipper said.

At nine Melody phoned, just to check up. She said everything was ready, and she, Abuelita, and Soos were about to set off for Gravity Falls. "Soos's sister will be released tomorrow morning about ten," she said. "We talked to her on the phone just a minute ago, and she's doing fine. Reggie's going to stay here and help out for a few days until she's up and about again. I'm glad the kids were good for you."

"They were great," Wendy told her. "I just peeked in on Harmony, and she's sleeping soundly. She finished her last bottle at about seven-thirty, so she'll probably wake up between ten and eleven hungry for a fresh one. Little Soos went right to sleep."

She heard Soos say something, and Melody relayed it: "Soos wants to know if Little Soos got his bedtime story."

"Yeah, Dip read him _Fluffy Duckling and His Missing Mommy_."

Dipper said, loud enough for Melody to hear, "He did half the animal sounds himself!"

Melody relayed that news, and she could hear Soos, off to the side somewhere, say, "Yes! A genius! Everything's falling into place!"

Melody chuckled fondly and said to Wendy, "Well, we ought to be there by eleven-thirty or so. Thanks for watching the kids!"

"We enjoyed it," Wendy said.

Mabel woke up not long after that. They sat around for an hour, playing stud poker for matchsticks—Mabel won because, as she cheerfully explained, "Grunkle Stan taught me how to cheat like a pro!"

Then a little after eleven, Dipper stretched. "It's strange," he said.

"What is, Brobro?" Mabel asked, counting her ill-gotten matchsticks for the fifth or sixth time.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "We just had to babysit. We did it. And the kids weren't stolen by gryphons, or attacked by giant vampire bats, or whisked away to the past—Gnomes didn't kidnap them, the Gremloblin didn't show up to give them nightmares, they didn't morph into monsters, nothing!"

"Well," Wendy said, "Even Gravity Falls has an off day now and then."

"Yeah," Mabel said. "Maybe we can make up for it this weekend. When it's quiet like this, something's definitely building up. One last wild adventure before we go home to Piedmont!"

"You gonna get your driver's license when you get back home?" Wendy asked.

"You better believe it, baby!" Mabel said. "The day after Labor Day! Then we have to persuade Mom and Dad to buy us some wheels!"

"First, though," Dipper reminded her, "we have to pass the DMV test."

"Pffbbt!" Mabel said. "I've taken every practice test and aced 'em all! We got all our supervised driving hours logged over the summer. Now I can't wait to get my real license and be able to drive a car without somebody 25 or older supervising me!"

Wendy patted Dipper's knee. "How about you, Dip?"

Dipper shrugged. "It'll be nice, but I'm not car-crazy or anything. But, yeah, I'll be glad to be able to drive places on my own. Gives you a sense of freedom, you know. What's wrong? You just shivered."

"You OK, Wendy?" asked Mabel.

Wendy shook her head. "It's nothing. I just got this momentary creepy feeling," she said. "This is just ordinary, average teen talk. And Dipper's right—this isn't the way these things usually work out, so normal and all! Tell you what—let's be on our toes until your birthday party and watch out for anything strange. 'Cause this is Gravity Falls."

"Right," Mabel said. "Where anthyding can hadplen!"

"Mabel," Dipper said, "you are messed up."

"We're all messed up!"

Wendy hugged both the twins. "Yeah, but we're messed up in a good way!"

Harmony began to murmur on the baby monitor.

"Well-p," Wendy said, starting to get up, "sounds like it's time to warm up another bottle."

"I got it," Dipper said, jumping to his feet and heading for the kitchen.

Mabel smiled up at Wendy. "Two more years, big sister," she said softly.

And Wendy smiled back. "That's what I'm countin' on."


	11. Chapter 11

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **11\. In Your Dreams**

 **(August 27, 2015)**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** Thursday morning, 6:15. Maybe it was just a dream. That makes sense. I'm getting all angsty about going home and being away from Wendy for maybe a few months, maybe most of the year. In a way I hate to leave. The Shack seems almost like home to me now, sometimes more than our house in Piedmont does.

And I've been upset about the business with Mabel, like a throwback to when we were twelve and she messed herself up with Smile Dip . . . and lots of other things. I keep thinking about all the people who died when Brujo was coming after us. For the longest time, I didn't realize that as he came, he was murdering people along the way. Traci among them. I liked Traci a lot. I wish . . . never mind.

But—you know, I still feel guilty. Because Ford and I didn't catch on earlier. Because we didn't stop him before he came so close. What we did worked—but people died because we didn't pick up on the clues.

It's OK to tell yourself, "Well, I didn't know at first what we were up against." But then you think, "I SHOULD have known."

And other stuff. Mabel's so looking forward to getting her driver's license. I'll get mine, too—I'll pass the test, and with what I've learned from Wendy about driving, I won't have any trouble passing the road test, either. I can even parallel park now without breaking a sweat.

Still—Mabel thinks of driving as an adventure, but I think of it as a challenge. A car can kill you if you don't pay attention—or kill someone else, which in a way might be worse. I'll do all I can to drive defensively and so on, but I'm always a little nervous behind the wheel.

Strange that Mabel used to dread growing up, and now she's embracing it. I'm the one who's worried and afraid.

Lots of anxieties. I'm super-stressed but trying to hide it.

Ah, I'm trying to avoid writing about what happened just now.

OK, I had this dream.

I _think_ it was a dream. I may talk to Grunkle Ford about it. He says he's had visions before—not dreams, but warnings, omens, whatever you want to call them. This, I think was a dream.

I think.

But maybe not. Maybe Ford will know.

Anyway, it was very nearly a lucid dream. I wasn't conscious enough to be in control, but everything had the clarity of ordinary life. Sharp, with colors—most of the time I don't seem to dream in color, but this time, I definitely did.

I was standing in this . . . place. It seemed to be made of stone, marble, maybe, blindingly white. Light shone all around. It was a huge building, temple, shrine, cathedral, whatever it was. Or maybe a museum or a center of learning.

But . . . empty. The floor stretched away in all directions, and in the dim blue distance, I could see tiers of arches rising up and up until they got lost in the distance. If there was a ceiling, I couldn't see it—just a brilliant glow. I might have been in a Roman building that was five miles across, and who knows how tall.

Trying to decide where I was, I turned all the way around. I was wearing, well, ordinary clothes. My sneakers, my jeans, a red shirt, and my cargo vest. And my pine-tree trucker's cap. I think I yelled: "Hello? Is anyone here?"

Nobody answered, though, so I started walking. I didn't have any goal—just maybe to cross that immense floor and get to the distant arches. I don't know what I expected to find, or if I expected to find anything. Though my sneakers were rubber-soled, my footfalls echoed: slap, slap, slap. They had the monotony of a clock ticking.

I was in dream-time, maybe. Anyhow, I walked and walked and walked and never got any nearer to the arches. Finally, I stopped and said out loud, "Please, can I speak to you?"

I didn't know who I was talking to.

"Behind you." It was a soft voice, a woman's voice—I think—and I turned around. Somehow while walking away from that wall of the huge room—I had arrived at one of the archways. She wore a hooded robe, midnight-blue. Beyond her the arch opened into space, I suppose. A deep-purple void sprinkled with a few stars and streaked with red and green streamers of incandescent gas.

I just stared. It was a woman—again, I think—tall and slender, with an olive-gray complexion. A kind, smiling mouth. No nose at all. And seven eyes.

"I know you," I said.

"Oh, yes?" She held out an hourglass. "Have some tea."

I looked again. The hourglass was a cup. But hourglass shaped. Tea in the bottom was pouring upwards into the top. "Thank you," I said, accepting it. "I've seen the sketch that Grunkle Ford made of you. You're the Oracle. I don't remember your name."

She smiled. "My name is Jheselbraum the Unswerving, as nearly as your language can contain it. 'The Oracle.' Yes, he called me that. Then you should know I mean you no harm."

"I'm not afraid," I said. That surprised me—because it was the truth. I wasn't the least bit scared. Not normal for me. I sipped the tea. It was better than Mabel Juice.

"You want to ask me something," she said.

"If you know that," I told her, "you know what my question is."

She materialized her own cup of tea, except her tea glowed a fluorescent blue. I'd seen something like it before, in Time Baby's bottle during Globnar. "You're a refreshing young mortal. Sit, be comfortable."

And of course, a sofa had materialized behind me, stacked with soft cushions in yellow and blue. "What's the answer?" I asked.

She raised her cup as though in salute. "The answer is you are here because you need to be here. Things are about to change, Dipper Pines."

I felt a chill run up my spine. The last time I'd heard something like that—Bill Cipher was promising the end of the world.

"Oh, yes, he's here," the Oracle said. "Or at least a projection of him is."

And then Bill himself was seated on a sofa that appeared next to mine. He wore his top hat, his bow tie—the tie still in the colors he'd taken from me—and he also held a cup of tea. And he was my size or larger. "Hiya, Pine Tree," he said in his familiar voice. "I don't always get along with our hostess, but she brews a good cuppa tea." He lifted his hourglass-shaped cup, his stick-finger pinky extended. The liquid in his hourglass-shaped cup was a boiling, steaming red.

"I brought you here," the Oracle said—whether to me or to Bill, I don't know—"to say goodbye."

I felt a little leap of panic. Bill has been part of me for years now—and he'd kept insisting that his presence in my heart, a literal presence, a few Bill-molecules that had saved my life when my heart stopped, had changed me, had made me—well, what I am now. More confident, more willing to take risks. A runner on the track team. A musician. A writer.

Someone who dared to love Wendy Corduroy.

"You're taking him away from me?" I asked.

"She no can do, kid," Bill said. "That little bit of me will be with you to your dying day. However, it's toodle-oo for now. Thanks for the memories. Breaking up is hard to do. You will survive. Just gonna stand and watch me burn? Nothing I can do, it's a total eclipse of your heart. Man, you meat bags love to sing about breaking up."

"Wait, wait," I said. "If part of you is going to stay in my heart—"

"Presence is a given, but communication's the prob," Bill said. "I'm gonna be incommunicado for a while. Years. Maybe weeks, even! You won't hear from me, but I'll be around . . . watching you. Always watching." His one eye rolled toward the Oracle. "Am I telling the truth, Jhes, babe?"

"Don't call me that." The Oracle sipped her tea and to me said, "Bill made a promise to the Axolotl, through me," the Oracle said. "He must fulfill it. Don't think of me the wrong way, Dipper. I am not omniscient. I can see many things in many dimensions. Most things. All dimensions." She blinked all seven of her eyes in sequence and smiled. "Occasionally, however, something can surprise me. When Bill restarted your heart, against all odds—when he did something that he claimed was totally selfish, though I know truly it wasn't— _that_ surprised me. He has made some progress on the path he must take, a few short steps. But now time to fulfill his promise has come around. Bill has some growing up and adjusting to do."

"Yeah, yeah, I've been naughty, I've had my time out, now the test is coming up. Thing is, Pine Tree," Bill said, after having poured about half his boiling-hot cup of tea into his eye, "the fragment of me that's in you isn't big enough to have its own intelligence. It draws on the rest of me, which exists not in reality but in the Mindscape. But that's about to change. I'm going to get my second chance, right, Oracle?"

"Your very last chance," she said with a demure smile. "Courtesy of the Axolotl. No matter how powerful you think you are, you know he can defeat you with almost no effort."

"Yeah, Old Frilly is the big kahuna, blah, blah. Thanks for reminding me," Bill said sourly. "Anyway, part of the deal is I get a new body and a new brain and all that goes with it—physical existence. The downside is, I'm mortal. My understanding and knowledge and everything start from a nearly blank slate. My tabula's rasa. In other words, I got no mental radio equipment to speak to you through the molecules that are still inside you."

"So—this is goodbye forever?"

"Ness notcessarily. When my body's mature enough, then with patience and practice, I can recall my old knowledge and control what I do in the Dreamscape, and then all lines will be open, with operators standing by and bystanders ready to operate. Until then—radio silence, kid."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said.

Bill shrugged. "Let me simple it up for you: I get this one mortal life to prove I can be good, then when the body dies—my essence goes free again, and _then_ if the Oracle and the Axolotl both judge I'm worthy, I'll get to go back, maybe, trillions of years, and have a do-over in my own dimension. My incarnation is gonna be like my final exam for getting a second chance. Maybe this time I can keep myself from slaughtering my own family and wiping out all sentient life in my dimension. That would be a good think, I thing. Anyways, kid, you've been coming to me sometimes with questions or asking for advice. That ain't gonna work for probably a few years. You're on your own, alone again. Naturally."

I felt my heart sinking. "Sometimes I do need help," I muttered.

The Oracle smiled. "And you can always find it. In your Grunkle Ford or your Grunkle Stanley. In your sister Mabel. In your true love, Wendy. Or in any one of all your friends. Most of all, within your own heart and soul, Dipper Pines. Stand up."

I did, and she leaned forward from where she sat and touched my chest. "Bill is mistaken about one thing. I _could_ take this fragment of him from your heart and not harm you."

"Aw, come on! At least leave the kid something to dismember me by!" Bill complained.

The Oracle smiled again. "So shall it be. The little morsel of Bill will remain in you, though I could remove it without harming you physically. I am the only one in the multiverse who could."

"I don't know how I feel about that," I admitted. "Relieved, I guess. I'm sort of used to it."

"Then we will leave the molecules where they are. Though after today you cannot speak to Bill through the molecules, at least for some years to come, the confidence and determination their presence lends you will stay. And one day you will be able to communicate again. Perhaps sooner than you fear. The flow and ebb of human time baffle even me."

"We'll meet again," Bill said, and he started humming.

"Don't remind me of Weirdmageddon," I snapped.

"Sheesh, touchy subject! Well, kiddo, until next time. Say hi to Fordsy for me—tell him I still think he would've made a heck of a henchmaniac! And tell Stanley I don't have any resentment toward him for that punch in the stonework, even if the next time I see him I may try to rip his eyeballs out of his skull, see how he likes it! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Look at your face, Pine Tree! Serially, though, I'm kidding. I mean, sure, I'll miss you, but my aim is getting better! Hey, tell Mabel I'm sorry I never got around to possessing her. She doesn't miss what she's knowing! And give Red my very best, which is about twice as good as your very best, believe me or don't!"

I just stared at him. I never know what to make of Bill. I guess I never will.

His cup vanished, he rose and hovered in the air, and extended his hand. In a quiet, serious tone, he said, "This is goodbye, kid, at least for a while. Before I go, will you shake my hand? Gesture of friendship? Of non-enemyship? No deals, no tricks, no hits, no errors, no one left on base?"

I looked at the Oracle, who returned my gaze without giving any hint.

"OK," I said, holding out my hand. "Good luck, Bill."

And he jerked his thumb back over where his shoulder would have been if he'd had one. " _Psych!_ Ah-ha-ha-ha!"

He vanished before the sound of his laughter faded completely. "He's insane," I told the Oracle.

"I think that greatly depends on one's frame of reference," she said. "Remember, Dipper, Bill will be watching from inside you, even if he can't speak to you. And I'll be watching from all around you. As you said to Bill, Dipper Pines—good luck."

She swept her palm down over my face, I closed my eyes—and instantly opened them in my bedroom.

And it's taken me half an hour to write this out, and I still don't know if it was all a dream or not.

I didn't _feel_ any different. After I woke up, I didn't try to call on Bill—I had no reason to.

But what if in the future I get in trouble—

No. I can't think like that. Not any longer.

I'm going to be sixteen. I can't rely on Bill to give me advice or a nudge or a bit of help from now on, even if part of him lingers inside me.

I guess—though I'm scared—from here on out, I'll have to rely on everything _else_ that's inside me. And on my family and my friends and my goofy sister and the girl I love.

Maybe even my own heart. My own soul.

And maybe that will be enough.


	12. Chapter 12

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **12\. A Man to Man Talk. To Man.**

 **(August 27, 2015)**

It was always better to talk to Grunkle Ford when he wasn't in his lab. Down there beneath the Shack, he always found something to distract him. Stan had once remarked to Dipper, "The biggest problem with my brother ain't that he's got a one-track mind. He's got a million of 'em. And one tiny ant on any one of 'em's enough to derail his train of thought." Stan had taken a long swig of Pitt Cola. "That's called a metaphor, kid."

Like many metaphors, it got at the truth.

On Thursday, Dipper waited until the workday was over, until Wendy had gone home—she couldn't linger at the Shack every night, and tonight was the one when she made double dinners for her family, one to serve and one to freeze—until Ford and Stan came over with their wives to huddle with Mabel concerning next week's big party.

Mabel had already made up flyers to display and hand out all around town:

* * *

 **The Party of the Century!**

 **Where: The Mystery Shack! When: August 31, 10 A.M.! What?**

 **What, you ask?**

 **A CELEBRATION OF THE MYSTERY TWINS'**

 **SWEET! (a photo of Mabel, smiling) AND SOUR! (one of Dipper scowling, since she'd just wakened him by jumping on his bed)**

 **SIXTEENTH LEGENDARY BIRTHDAY!**

 **Music! Food! Dancing! Games! Prizes! Excitement! Romance! Intrigue! Heart-Stopping Enjoyment! And Fun!**

 **It will be LEGENDARY! Everyone come! NO admission, NO exit fee, NO presents required (but much appreciated!)**

 **Come one, come all! It will be LEGENDARY!**

* * *

Soos and Stan had agreed, of course—by now the party was an annual tradition, and the folks of Gravity Falls looked forward to it.

Soos, Melody, Grenda, Candy, Stan, and Mabel were all in deep conference about how to make this year's party the best one ever. Sheila and Lorena were pitching in. Ford . . . was the outsider. He excused himself after an hour, and Dipper followed him out to the porch. "Gets a little crazy, doesn't it?" Dipper asked, handing him a can of Pitt Cola.

"Thank, you, Mason. It does, indeed." He smiled. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for you and Mabel, and I hope this will be a party to remember, but I'm not much for planning social occasions."

"Me, either," Dipper said. "I'm barely used to having friends, let alone feeling at home in some of these mob situations." He popped his own can of Pitt and took a long swallow. "Un, Grunkle Ford? I want to ask you something about the being you wrote about in your Journal 3."

"Ah, yes," Ford said, smiling. "I met so many sentient and semi-sentient creatures in my journey through myriad dimensions. I've barely scratched the surface in recording them. I'm writing a longer description now in a book I mean to publish privately: "The Plurality of Reality." It's not as cut and dried as it sounds. I'll be sure you get one of the first copies."

"Thanks," Dipper said. He had given one of the first copies of his own book, _Bride of the Zombie,_ to Ford, but his great-uncle hadn't mentioned reading it.

"It will be my honor," Ford said, surprising him. "It's a sort of return for your giving me that beautifully inscribed copy of your novel. I think you did wonders in revising it, by the way. From reading it, no one would guess how young you are!"

Dipper felt so tongue-tied that he took three sips of cola to cover. "Yeah, my editor thinks I'm about twenty. Thanks, Grunkle Ford, but the book's not as good as I hoped," he muttered. "I see things wrong with it now that I missed."

Ford put a hand on Dipper's shoulder. "Be comforted, Mason. That happens to every good writer. Only the foolish ones think their words are writ in stone. There's always room for improvement."

"I'm trying to do better with the next one," Dipper said, wondering why praise bothered him more than criticism. Mabel had exultantly clipped and printed out every review of _Bride_ that she found and had made him a special scrapbook of them—and eighty per cent of them were solid praise, the other twenty positive, but with some mixed criticisms. Not one panned the book. However, it was the twenty per cent of mixed reviews that he re-read and fretted about.

He coughed. "Anyway, I think the being you encountered and described was in Dimension 52?"

Ford raised his bushy eyebrows. "Ah, Jheselbraum the Unswerving. Also known as the Oracle. I remember her very well indeed. She healed my injuries and gave me courage to go on. What about her, Mason?"

"I had a vision of her last night," Dipper muttered. "Or maybe just a dream. But it seemed more intense than a dream, and I don't know why I'd dream about the Oracle. I mean, I haven't re-read that part of the Journal in over a year. I couldn't even remember her name, but she pronounced it for me. And she got a little ticked off, I think, when Bill Cipher mispronounced it."

Ford stiffened. "Wait? Cipher? You saw him, too?"

"He said he'd come to say goodbye to me." Dipper didn't have to remind his great-uncle of the time the Horroracle, a super-dimensional being obsessed with stopping time in all dimensions that it could reach, had come close to succeeding. Only by besting the Horroracle in a contest—and having his heart stopped in return—had Dipper banished it. And Bill Cipher, who said he was desperate because if Dipper died from the Horroracle's attack, time in this dimension would freeze forever and he would never be able to leave it, had jump-started Dipper's heart by donating about six of his own molecules. They were still lodged in Dipper's heart tissue, so miniscule that even an X-ray or a sonogram wouldn't show them.

However, as Cipher worked to reconstruct an analogue of his body in the physical realm (though he was restricted to the area immediately near where his stone effigy stood), the larger part of Bill's mind had inhabited the Mindscape, and for two years it had communicated with Dipper via the heart implant.

"Now that's ending," Dipper said. "I think—I'm not sure—I think the Axolotl is going to let Bill be reborn as a human. He has to live his human life all the way through and well to be sent back to his own dimension eventually. I'm not sure what's involved, really."

"The Axolotl," Ford murmured. "Yes, I know the legends of him. If it is a him. It may be more a mind, a spirit, a force, than a being. It's the overseer of all dimensions, put there by the Creator to make certain everything runs as the eternal laws say it should. The Oracle is his interpreter and assistant. Time Baby is more limited—he has charge of all the variants of our particular dimension. Except he's dormant now."

"The TPAES is still active, though," Dipper said. "Blendin Blandin re-grouped it, and now it's run by a temporary committee of five. I think it's wrong that he's not on the committee. But at least he's been promoted."

"Is Bill being reborn in _this_ dimension?" Ford asked.

"I—think so. I'm not sure." Dipper frowned. "This morning when I woke up, something was running through my head. A poem, I guess? Somehow I realized it was about the Axolotl's decree when Bill asked for one last chance as he was being wiped out by the Memory Gun. Funny, I had this weird feeling that I'd heard it before, but I've racked my brain and can't remember anything about the first time."

"A poem? Can you repeat it?"

Dipper grinned and reached into a pocket of his vest. "Soon as I woke up, I wrote it all down, then recorded the dream in my Journal. This may not be word for word, but it's as close as I can remember."

He handed the folded paper to Ford, who opened and read it aloud:

"Sixty degrees that come in threes.

Watches from within birch trees.

Saw his own dimension burn.

Misses home and can't return.

Says he's happy. He's a liar.

Blame the arson for the fire.

If he wants to shirk the blame.

He'll have to invoke my name.

One way to absolve his crime.

A different form, a different time."

Re-folding the paper, Ford said, "Enigmatic, to be sure. Worthy of Bill Cipher."

"But it says he'll have to absolve his crime by taking a different form in a different time," Dipper replied. "Since I first started to—well, dream of Bill Cipher after Weirdmageddon, after I got past the nightmares, I mean—he's been, uh, helpful? I guess. He did save my life that one time, and he's advised me about other things. He explained about Zanthar when the Banshee was warning us that someone near the Shack would die."

Ford nodded. "Yes, and he took temporary form—though I don't think he was fully material—when Stanley and I were searching for the Fountain of Youth. He was the one who persuaded the owner of the Fountain to spare us some of the water."

"He appeared once to Wendy, too," Dipper said. "She says he was nearly like a ghost, warned her of danger and then just faded away. And whenever I've gone into the Mindscape to talk with him, he's always been willing to offer help or advice. So—if he's coming back as a human—will we even recognize him? And more important, can we trust him?"

Ford's expression hardened. "Will we recognize him? If I know Bill, that won't be a problem. He can't help advertising himself! Can we _trust_ him? Dipper, I'm the wrong person to ask. I could never fully trust Bill, not after his betrayals, not after what he did to me and to my family! I want nothing to do with him in any shape or form."

"He told me to tell you he still thinks you would have been a great addition to his team," Dipper murmured.

"And I regard that as an insult. And as a reminder that I let my ambition and my curiosity overpower my humanity. What I did to Fiddleford—even if it was by accident—and then when I pulled him back and refused to listen to him—Mason, it tears me apart."

"I'm sorry, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said.

"A different form, a different time," Ford said thoughtfully. "That might mean he'll be born a thousand years from now. It may be something you and I will never have to concern ourselves about." He laughed without sounding amused. "On the other hand, with the powers these super-dimensional beings have, he may be born tomorrow, or two hundred years ago, or anywhere and anywhen! I think the best we can do is to be aware of the possibility—and be on guard."

"Thanks for listening," Dipper said. "It was impossible to keep that to myself."

"Any time." Ford sighed. Again he sounded thoughtful: " _One way to atone._ _A different time_. I spoke just now of how a good writer always finds fault with his or her work, Mason. And it's true. You see the few flaws, not the many successes. It's inevitable. And the same is true of our lives. Lorena has me reading poetry, something I rather neglected during my education. There's a work by a Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, about his dying father. Thomas talks about how different kinds of men confront death. In one part he says, 'Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'"

"I don't understand," Dipper said.

"I think it means that if one is good—truly good—one never believes one is good _enough_. A good man sets a standard he can't possibly reach, and judges himself against that impossible standard. Yet objectively, and to the world, he _is_ good. Another poet put it this way: 'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?' Our ambitions—if they're for good— _should_ be high. Indeed, we may think we have failed, in this world. But the reward a good man receives from posterity, or in heaven—that will reveal the value of such ambitions." He sighed. "Every man, every woman, would go back in time and undo some of their deeds if they could. Would that help? Would it hurt? No one can possibly say."

Dipper shook his head. "Too much philosophy for me. I guess we'll have to watch and wait. I only hope Bill has become, or will be, a better—person's the wrong word, isn't it? A better spirit than before." He sighed. "You talked about seeing flaws. It's true, and it's not just my book, either. I know what regrets are, Grunkle Ford. So many times, I've let people down. You, Stan, Wendy. Mabel, especially, so many times and in such bad ways. I just feel like such an idiot sometimes, for not seeing what's right in front of me. If I could do it over—but I've found out I can't."

"We're all in the same boat, Dipper," Ford said, patting his shoulder. "Including me." He sighed. "When I was just about your age, I worked out a formula that suggested I might tap into a virtually endless supply of free energy. I spent a year working on a device that could demonstrate that. And just before my project was to be judged—Stanley accidentally unbalanced it and the jury said it was worthless. I blamed Stanley for that. My father kicked him out of the house—at seventeen! And I—I stood by and watched him go and said nothing. That was so wrong of me. That was so stupid."

"Yeah," a grating voice said from the doorway, "and you never apologized for that, either! That's what pissed me off, Brainiac! Scoot over."

He sat on the old sofa next to his brother. "Yeah, it was an accident, Dipper. See, I knew the committee was comin' to judge, and I panicked, 'cause I knew that if the jury loved the doohickey that Ford had built, it meant he'd move away forever and I'd never see him again. Me, I'd be stuck with a lousy barnacle-scraping job! But you know what? Anybody ought to have regrets, it's me! I'm the one who pounded on the table and unbalanced that machine."

"But that was an accident," Ford said. "You didn't mean to disable it. I'm guiltier than you are—I still managed to achieve _my_ dream, though not getting the scholarship to West Coast made it much harder. On the other hand, you were a failure."

"Not so much," Stan said. "Yeah, all my big plans crashed and burned every single time—but I was learnin' all the time, Poindexter! I always started over again, and failed again, and learned again! I got my education on the road and in jail cells!"

Dipper broke in: "I've heard this before, you know. And his education _did_ let Stan learn enough to fix the Portal and bring you home," he told Ford.

Ford grinned. "Very true. And that homecoming _did_ create a rift and allow Bill Cipher to break into our dimension."

Stan chuckled. "And _that_ made it possible for me to act like an asshole and refuse to hold my own brother's hand!"

"And still, the two of you fought off Bill Cipher and canceled out the end of the world," Dipper said, overriding them both. "I'd say everything evened up."

"Yeah, pretty much," Stan agreed. "Hey, Brainiac! I got wind of a baccarat tournament in Venice, Italy. Payout's likely to be in the million-buck range for the big winner. Sheila's always wanted to see Venice. You and Lorena in?"

Ford stared at his brother. "Would you even _go_ if I said no?"

"'Course not!" Stan said. "Baccarat's just a dumbed-down form of 21, but to have a fighting chance, I still need help with the odds!"

Ford nodded. "When?"

"Very end of September, first week in October. You in?"

"Well . . . maybe. As long as Lorena can get someone to cover for her job."

"Then you're in," Stan said, his grin widening. "Talked to her last week, and she already arranged that."

"You drive me crazy," Ford said.

Stan threw his arm around his brother's shoulder and hugged him, laughing. "We drive each other crazy!"

"Dip-PER!" Mabel yelled from inside the Shack. "Come here! We need some nerd advice, _now_!"

 _We drive each other crazy_ , Dipper thought.

But he yelled, "Be right there!"


	13. Chapter 13

**One Week of Wonder**

* * *

 **13\. Frantic Friday**

 **(August 28, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 1: Anty Gravity**

During his thirty years as owner, promoter, manager, and presiding Mr. Mystery of the Mystery Shack, Stan always said, "Ya can't ever be sure how any day in the Shack is gonna go, until it's gone already."

Which if you didn't think about it too hard made a kind of sense, like some of his other pearls of wisdom:

"Kids, sometimes in life you'll come to a fork in the road. Always take it."

"I'm sick of gambling in Vegas. It's so popular these days, nobody goes there."

"Listen, kid, on days when you think you're gonna get up on the wrong side of the bed—slide down and off over the foot."

"Pumpkin, life is like poker. Ya got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, and know if the other players are so dumb you can cheat."

Anyhow, aside from the sayings he stole from Yogi Berra, Stan sometimes offered advice that really helped. Not often, mind you, but he had his moments.

Like on that Friday morning—for no reason except his instincts, he and Sheila came over for breakfast, and as he had his second cup of coffee, he said, "Something's gonna go wrong today, I can feel it. Soos, your call, but you want, me and Sheila will hang around to help. I got a premonition you're gonna have a busy day."

"Sure, Mr. Pines," Soos said, giving his beaver-toothed grin. Ever since the summer of 2012, Stan had insisted that as the new Mr. Mystery, Soos should call him "Stan," but a habit formed over ten years is hard to break. "In fact, that'll let Abuelita and Melody have a day out with the kids. Would you lady dudes like that?"

"It sounds wonderful!" Abuelita said.

"If you're sure you can spare us," Melody said.

"Oh, sure, with Sheila's and Mr. Pines's help, we're ready for anything! Hey, Mr. Pines, you want the fez and the eyepatch today?"

Stan waved him off. "Nah. You be Mr. Mystery, I'll do the Museum walk-throughs, Wendy and Dipper will mind the gift shop, Teek and Mabel will take care of the snack bar. Sheila will help as needed. I think we got this covered."

It sounded like a plan. And, to be fair, it ran as smooth as could be. Until about ten o'clock.

The buses rolled in then. About a dozen of them.

Loaded to bursting with . . . kids from summer camp!

School was about to start again, and that Friday was the last day of the last week of summer camps all around central Oregon. Somehow—it might possibly have been the good idea that Mabel had talked Soos into accepting, making a TV ad and an Internet one that welcomed campers in for a flat fee of ten dollars per bus load—somehow, suddenly, every camp for miles around packed their kids into buses and drove them down to Gravity Falls for a day of fun and mystery.

It would be easy to blame Mabel.

OK, it was Mabel's fault. See how easy that was?

However, let's be fair. Mabel had never worked as a camp counselor responsible for a hundred eight- to twelve-year-olds. She had never even _been_ to summer camp—mainly because her mom wouldn't let Dipper go to summer camp because, up to the time he was twelve, she fretted over letting him out of the house if there was a chance he'd run into kids his own age. He was, she thought, a fragile, sensitive child who could easily fall victim to bullies.

Which in itself instantly made him a bully magnet, but that was beside the point. Mom vetoed summer camp for him, which meant that Mabel couldn't go, either. Their stay in Gravity Falls during the summer of 2012 had been their first venture away from Mom and Dad, and it bore no resemblance to a summer camp, unless the summer camp you went to was run by a borderline nutcase with a predilection for petty larceny.

Anyway, with that lack of experience, Mabel did not know that going to camp has a strange effect on the tender minds of the young campers. At the lower end of the scale, it meant that eight-year-olds would make and accept dares that would give Superman pause. At the higher end, it meant that hormones danced their way in, making the girls boy crazy and the boys just plain cray-crazy.

It's a well-known fact that zits drain thinking ability from the brain.

Also, camp has side effects. Congregating in groups has a way of sticking a kid's volume control at eleven. Being in the presence of girls made the eleven- and twelve-year-old boys want to pinch, trip, or kiss the girls, sometimes all at the same time. The girls found themselves tempted to tease the boys until they started hitting each other, because they wanted to hit the girls, but you can't do that, so slug Bobby instead, and he'll pummel you in return.

Punctuating everything were farts, both real and pretend, jeers of laughter, shrieks and squeals, and general pandemonium. "Pandemonium," by the way, is a word coined by John Milton in _Paradise Lost_ to describe what hell sounds like. It comes from Latin words meaning "All the Devils." Milton probably thought it up the year he was an assistant counselor at a summer camp.

Anyway, once the campers poured off the buses, it was like being invaded by an army of hyperactive Munchkins high on Smile Dip. Wendy quickly became frazzled, zipping around and gently suggesting at the top of her lungs, "Don't touch that! You! Take that _out_ of her mouth! No, no, those aren't meant for juggling!" and the like. Meanwhile, the counselors were crowding the lawn and the picnic tables, drinking sodas and trading stories about how _their_ brats were brattier than _your_ brats, making plans to hook up after the kids had been sent home, and so on. They were as much help as a prairie dog would have been in a cattle drive. Maybe less.

Meanwhile, inside the Shack, one kid had gone through the staff only door, unnoticed, and came running out again screaming, closely pursued by a hopping, quivering, living photocopy of his butt. "I got this!" Mabel yelled, running over with a glass of ice water.

Amazingly quickly, about a dozen boys and girls had met for the first time ever, become acquainted, and organized themselves into a shoplifting ring. The ice-cream freezer was completely emptied without anyone ever spotting a suspect.

Soos came staggering back in from the first Mystery Trail tram tour yelling, "I can't take it! They're, like, everywhere!"

Wanting to help, Stan swapped with him and took the next tram tour out himself. But thirty hyper campers managed to drown out even his rusty-chainsaw spiel, so he started just making things up at random: "That's the haunted outhouse. Crap comes alive in there. Literally! It's the place where a dump takes _you_! See those little guys in the red hats? They're cannibal Gnomes! Let me stop and they can have you over for lunch."

Nobody seemed to hear anything he said over the din of their own yelling. On the way back, Stan started to formulate a plan: haul 'em all out to the Bottomless Pit, shove 'em in. Maybe by the time they re-emerged, in 22 minutes, the bus drivers would take them all away again.

The climax didn't come until a total of maybe seventy-five kids were on the verge of rioting in the Museum and gift shop, though. Over the years, Soos had added exhibits and artifacts that he had found (often through Ford or Stan) up for sale on Shh-Bay, the Dark Web's auction site. In some cases, the seller had paid him to take the cursed curios.

Anyhow, one of the new exhibits was an antique bottle, not glass but earthenware, a strange green shade, with the patina of centuries and arcane symbols that had been impressed in the clay and baked in the kiln.

There are no corresponding symbols in any known type font, but let's substitute: #^-! [ *#) !-. Not horizontal but inscribed in two side-by-side vertical lines. Something like that. The jug was sealed and if you shook it, it felt completely empty, though if you shook it and pressed your ear against the side right after, sometimes you heard a little skittery sound, as if something small but many-legged were running around in there.

The inscription remained a mystery. Neither Ford nor Dipper had been able to find any known cuneiform, alphabetic, pictogram, or other linguistic pattern that would give a clue even to the language of the inscription, let alone its meaning.

Soos had decided that the bottle was a MAGIC WISHING JUG that would grant a person's wish but would LIKE CURSE IT, SO IT CAME TRUE IN AN IRONIC DEAL OR SOME JUNK, according to the label he had slapped on the shelf beneath it.

However—and here we venture beyond the knowledge of anybody in the Shack or indeed of anyone on Earth—the enchanted vessel did not grant wishes. It did bestow a kind of curse, depending on one's definition of cursedness. It dated back to the mythological pre-history of Ancient Greece, and it figured obliquely in the _Iliad_ , as an explanation of how Achilles picked up the warriors who followed him during the Trojan War.

It goes back thousands of years before Achilles, even, to the island of Aegina, which had an underpopulation problem, and to its king, Aecus, who asked Zeus to help him find a few good men, like ten thousand or so, because he _was_ a king and would like to have people to bow and say "Yes, your majesty," and go invade the next country over if he felt like it.

And Zeus granted Aecus's request, and the bottle was the means of—oh, you can look it up yourself.

Anyway, be it known that Soos had acquired the so-called MAGIC WISHING JUG from a small European college's archaeology department that had never displayed it, studied it, or even understood how ancient it was, and know also that no one had ever, ever removed the long-fused stopper from the bottle, not since King Aecus had done it for the first and last time millennia ago.

So of course, a couple of brats grabbed the jug from the shelf and played tug-of-war with it, and that's when it happened.

Silence rolled through the shack like a reverse thunderclap.

"Where'd everybody go?" Mabel asked from the snack bar.

"Whoa!" Dipper said. "What happened?"

"Yuck!" Wendy said. "The place is, like, overrun with ants!"

Sheila knew where the ant spray was kept and ran to get it. Fortunately, Teek, in flicking some of the critters off the counter, suddenly bent down and focused on a few. "Wait!" he yelled in the nick of time. "These ants are wearing clothes!"

Dipper, who had acquired a bleeding _enormous_ magnifying glass during his first summer in Gravity Falls, rushed upstairs and got it.

It was true that ants swarmed all over the place.

However, under the magnifying glass, all the ants clearly did wear little tiny tee shirts in varying colors—lime green, yellow, orange, blue, red, and so on—that corresponded to the camp outfits the kids had been wearing.

"Oh, my gosh!" Dipper said. "I think—something turned all these kids into ants!"

"Good!" Stan said, grinning and rubbing his hands together. "Somebody—find me the swatter!"


	14. Chapter 14

**14\. Frantic Friday**

 **(August 28-29, 2015)**

* * *

 **Part 2: The Great Roundup**

"Ants?" Ford asked over the telephone. "Just in size, or—"

"Literally!" Dipper said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. "They're bugs!"

"Ants are insects, Mason. Bugs are insects in the Hemiptera suborder and are distinct from other insects—"

"They're literal ants!" Dipper all but yelled. "Six legs! They're wearing tee shirts! With four sleeves each! They walk on the hind pair of legs! They're smaller than carpenter ants, but larger than harvester ants! And they run around in groups, color-coded by their tee shirts!"

"Calm down," his great-uncle cautioned. "Is each ant half an inch long? A quarter of an inch? Estimate."

"Umm . . . maybe a quarter of an inch to three-eighths."

"And how much did the students weigh? In all, I mean, as a group?"

"Grunkle Ford, how should I know that?"

"Estimate, Mason."

"Um . . . OK, we had about a hundred seventy-five campers. Uh . . . if the median age of the campers was ten, um . . . let's see, I'm looking this up on my laptop . . . OK, I'd say seventy pounds would be a ballpark average, so seventy times a hundred and seventy-five, that would be, ah, carry the three, um, twelve thousand . . . two hundred and fifty pounds. Say 5,600 kilograms."

"Listen to me: The mass must have gone somewhere. Most likely there's a parasite dimension somewhere in the Shack—these form when the laws of nature are bent so far they're ready to break. First, locate that. Set your anomaly detector to DI-5, that's dimensional intrusion grade five, and scan everywhere. Meanwhile, round up the ants."

"Round up the—how?"

Ford sounded faintly exasperated. "You say they travel in groups. Lure them! Lure them with something sweet! Find a group and, I don't know, sprinkle some sugar near them and make a trail leading to a container—not airtight! A glass jar would do if it had a punctured lid. But make sure the—"

"Wendy has a roll of mosquito netting in her car trunk!" Dipper said. "The mesh would be too small for the ants. How about jars with netting tops rubber-banded around?"

"Excellent! You do the scanning, have Mabel and Teek and Wendy take charge of rounding up the students—how many different groups?"

Dipper ran to the window. Outside, Grunkle Stan was entertaining the counselors by showing them something that seemed to have them hypnotized. Beyond them, in the parking lot, were the camp buses. Dipper counted. "Six full-sized buses and five vans, so eleven groups!"

"Then make eleven containment jars. I'll be over in ten minutes!"

Dipper borrowed Wendy's car keys as Mabel and Teek started to lay trails of sugar. He fished out the roll of netting—Wendy used it when camping—and hurried back inside. "OK if we cut this up?" he asked Wendy. "I'll buy you some more!"

"Sure, whatever," Wendy said, taking a pair of scissors from the drawer under sales counter. "Here, I'll do it. You go get that detector and—and start detecting!"

"Got two bunches!" Mabel said, popping two jars on the counter. In one, red-shirted ants milled around and began to climb the sides, but they slipped back without reaching the mouth of the container. In the other jar, blue-shirted ants were doing the same thing.

Holding the scissors, Wendy yanked open the junk drawer where everyone tossed the big rubber bands that came from the USPS—normally, they held stacks of envelopes together. As Dipper headed for the stairs, being careful where he stepped, Teek said, "Almost all the green ones are in this jar!"

"Keep going!" Dipper shouted. He rushed upstairs, tossed all his underwear in the floor—he kept the compact anomaly detector in that same drawer—and then switched it on as he came back downstairs. Soos huddled in the corner of the Museum, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. "What's wrong?" Dipper asked. "Are you scared of ants?"

"Scared of stepping on them!" Soos said. "I'm a big dude, dude! I'd hate to, like, squish the campers from Camp Lill-ol-Lyoms or some deal. That would be bad for the Shack's reputation!"

"Just stay put," Dipper said, studying the detector screen as he swept the Museum. "I'm looking for—"

He found it. The device buzzed and indicated a pulsing red-mesh space-time anomaly in the center of the room, just past the Sascrotch. Dipper approached carefully and stepped on something hard. He bent and picked it up: a conical something-or-other that looked like earthenware, but with a petrified layer of pitch or sap encrusting it. "What's this?"

"Don't know, dude. Oh, man, they were horsing around with the Magic Wishing Jug! I see it behind the Sascrotch's platform. Did they break it? Hey, did they, like, wish they could turn into ants? That's crazy-bonkers nutso! Kinda cool, though."

"I don't think they made a wish," Dipper said, retrieving the curio from the floor. "The jug's not broken, anyway. OK, I found what Grunkle Ford asked for. You stay where you are, and I'll help Teek, Mabel, and Wendy!"

They had rounded up six more groups: purple ants, yellow ants, orange ants, teal ants, brown ants, and silver-gray ants. "Just got three more to go!" Wendy said. "The gold ones are behind the counter, the turquoise ones are in the snack bar, and I don't know where the maroon ones went!"

"Mostly under the snack machine!" Mabel yelled. "I'm sprinkling the lure now!"

Meanwhile, out in the yard, Grunkle Stan was yapping to twenty-seven or so camp counselors while he held up a spinning disk with a hypnotic spiral painted on it: "Yeah, this is real distracting. I can't even look at it, or I'll lose track of what I'm doing! You guys all distracted?" A couple of the counselors numbly nodded. "That's great, that's great. OK, let me try something here: You are all gonna remember this as a wonderful trip! You'll recommend the Shack to everybody! Now just sit still and watch the nice spiral. Just keep watchin' the spiral."

Grunkle Ford pulled up in the driveway and jumped out of his Lincoln. Dipper had heard the car door slam and he came to the door. Ford saw him and yelled, "Mason! How's the operation going?"

"Uh, I don't know! I located the parasite dimension—it's about as big as a walk-in closet, and it's way dense. The others are rounding up the different groups of ants. Oh, and I found this!" He handed the Wishing Jug to Ford.

Ford held his specs at the corner with one hand and the jug with the other, slowly rotating it. "Hm. Pre-Helladic pottery, Minoan influences. This goes back to 2,000 BC or earlier. I don't recognize the inscription."

"Soos says some of the kids, uh, uncorked it. Or unstoppered it. Wait." Dipper reached in his pocket and produced the stopper, which he handed to Ford.

"Same material as the container, but with a bitumen gasket," Ford said. "Amazing. This thing might not have been unsealed for four thousand years!"

"Could it turn busloads of kids into ants?" Dipper asked. "That's the point!"

"Who knows? Let's go inside."

"Got the maroon ones, the little sneaks!" Mabel yelled. "Wendy's netting them in now!"

"Done!" Wendy said, snapping a rubber band to hold the mosquito netting in place. "That's all of them! If we got every single one!"

Ford leaned close to peer at the red-shirted ones—one of the most numerous bunches—and murmured, "They move very erratically, don't they? You didn't poison them, did you?"

"Just gave them sugar to lure them in," Dipper said.

"Nuh-uh!" Mabel said, holding up a white-and-pink envelope. "Not sugar. Smile Dip!"

"Worse than poison," Dipper groaned.

* * *

Out in the yard, Stan, getting a little hoarse, was saying, "And you saw all these great mysteries, right? And you'd recommend that everybody you know come to the Shack. In fact, you're gonna. And tell them to bring money. Real money! Lots of it! 'Cause they're gonna want souvenirs. In fact, you all want souvenirs! You'll stock up before you leave! And you guys, don't hit on the redhead, 'cause she's in a relationship! You girls, neither! 'Cept if you want to hit on the messy-haired boy at the register, that'd be OK, 'cause he could use the ego boost. Uh, that goes for you guys, too, I guess. Let me see . . . did I mention money?"

And the distracting, hypnotic spiral spun.

* * *

With the ants imprisoned in the jars—they did try to climb up to the mosquito netting, but none made it that high, and it looked like each jar had started its own bizarre Smile Dip-fueled mini-rave—Teek, Wendy, and Mabel just watched, fascinated.

After going down to the foot of the driveway to put up a "TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR INSECT TREATMENT" sign, Soos went to his and Melody's room to lie down for a while.

And Dipper and Ford descended the concealed stair and rode down in the elevator to the lab level where Ford kept his computers—with Dipper's advice, he had upgraded not long before and now the banks of computers were much more powerful than the old ones had been and, being only a few months old, were only a little outmoded.

Ford loved the computing power but complained bitterly about the Casements 10 operating system, which had to update itself nearly every day and half the time after the update crashed everything until Dipper could figure out how to fix it.

However, that day everything seemed to be working, and with Dipper at his elbow offering pointers and advice, Ford searched for information about what had happened.

A search for "people turning into ants" produced very little. Well, about three hundred thousand hits, but none of them suggested any help for their present problem. Surprisingly, "ants turning into people" produced even more, four hundred thousand plus, but they seemed equally irrelevant.

"Grunkle Ford," Dipper suggested, "if the urn's from ancient times, how about adding 'ancient Greece' to the search?"

Ford repeated the words under his breath as he slowly entered the search term. He was only a four-finger typist, and while that was twice as fast as an ordinary two-finger typist, it was still pretty slow compared to Dipper, who just by long practice could machine-gun out ninety words per minute. His fingers itched to take over the keyboard, but—it was Ford's, after all.

"And enter," Ford murmured.

Myrmidons was the first hit to pop up. "Of course!" Ford said. "The ancient Greek myth about the army of Achilles! The soldiers were descended from a race of men created when Zeus, king of the gods, transformed ants into humans!"

"That sounds pretty far out," Dipper said.

Ford shook his head. "Think about it. Ants would make perfectly good soldiers if they were in human form. They're used to marching in formation, they're strong and can take lots of damage, they operate well in a hierarchy, they'll obey any order no matter how idiotic, and if they break into an enemy stronghold, they can infest the pantries! Well, that last one, not so much, but—"

"How do you reverse it?" Dipper asked. "Or can that be done only by Zeus himself?"

"Let me see, let me see . . . magical amphorae . . .." After scanning a few web pages, Ford said, "Interesting! According to this, Pandora's box was not a box, but a ceramic vase—an amphora. Once opened, it could not be re-sealed. That's discouraging."

Dipper had given up coaching his great uncle and was sitting at another computer, rattling the keyboard as he did his own searches. "Grunkle Ford! Here, I'm sending you a URL to look up. This might be the answer!"

They both leaned forward, each gazing at his own screen. An observer might have thought that two versions of Ford had somehow time-warped into the same place, one at the age of fifteen, the other about fifty—they looked that much alike. And they both read the text in unison:

* * *

 _The Amphora of Circe appears in some fragmentary myths about the sorceress who transformed men into pigs. It was a magical vessel that contained her potion of transformation. Disguised as a fine wine, it affected every man who tasted it by changing him into a pig. The sole exception was Odysseus, who had been given a preventative potion by Hermes. . . ._

[They both skimmed the stuff about the Odyssey]

 _A myth also known to the ancient Etruscans identified the amphora, not the contents, as the magical implement and said that the spell could be reversed only with the same amphora. The same potion that caused men to become pigs could restore them if a second ingredient, pure honey, were added. In fact, some myths said that if the honey were added and the amphora re-sealed, the spell would be reversed without the pigs drinking the potion . . . ._

* * *

"Eureka!" Ford yelled.

"Uh—I don't think the kids actually drank anything from the jug," Dipper pointed out. "They just uncorked it."

"Still, we may be able reverse the effect if we add the honey and re-cork it," Ford said. "If the force that changed them operates like the one in this myth. What else do we have? It's worth a try!"

* * *

"Girl," Wendy said, "you gotta stop sprinkling that stuff into the jars!"

Mabel paused, a pinch of Smile Dip between her thumb and forefinger. "Aw, but they love it! Look at these little guys!"

The yellow ants had formed a pyramid, trying to reach the mosquito mesh. They obviously knew that Mabel had more of the powdered candy ready to drop in through the netting.

Which she did. The ants cheered—not that the humans could hear them—and went nuts on Smile Dip, popping around like jumping beans. "Little cuties!" Mabel said.

Teek muttered, "I hope your house never gets termites."

"I know, right?" Wendy said. "She'd, like, make pets of them!"

* * *

The vending machine swiveled, and Ford and Dipper emerged, Ford holding the amphora, Dipper the stopper. "Guys," Dipper said, "we think we might have a solution!"

Ford explained what they wanted to try. That took twenty minutes. "Dipper located the spot where the extra mass for the human bodies is probably trapped in a parasite dimension," he said. "We'll have to get all the ants in the same room—the Museum—and arrange them around that spot before we restore them to human form."

"Uh, won't the kids get crushed if they turn back into humans inside the jars?" Wendy asked.

"Good point, good point," Dipper said. "Uh, let's get some of those plastic food containers from the pantry. We'll put the ants in them and immediately try to reverse the, uh, spell? I guess spell."

They found eleven quart-sized containers and after Ford used his anomaly detector to confirm the general location of the parasite dimension, they spread the containers out on the floor in the Museum, encircling the spot. "The ants'll be able to crawl out of these," Teek pointed out.

"Nah, not so much," Mabel said, sprinkling in even more Smile Dip into the plastic boxes. "Trust me."

And sure enough, once released into the open containers, the Smile-Dip-addled ants simply milled about, most of them turning in tight circles, some lying on their backs, kicking their feet in the air, and most likely hallucinating.

Dipper ransacked the pantry. "We had a whole unopened pint jar of honey just yesterday!" he said. "What happened to it?"

"Uhh . . . " Mabel said, refusing to meet his gaze.

"Mabel!"

"It was sticky," she said. "It all stuck to my tongue!"

Teek went into the snack bar and came out with a little plastic single-serve packet of honey. "We have these for tea," he said. "This one was the last in the carton. There should have been 72."

"Uhh . . . " Mabel said again, tugging at the collar of her sweater.

"I figured," Teek said. He asked Dipper, "Is one enough?"

"We'll try it," Dipper said. He held the stopper. "Squirt it in!"

Teek tore off the corner and squeezed the contents of the packet into the amphora. "Wait, wait!" Mabel said. She dumped in the last of the envelope of Smile Dip. "Just for luck!"

"OK," Dipper said. "Zeus, here's an offering for you and Circe or whoever! Change them back!"

From out in the hall, they heard Soos's distant voice: "Thanks, but I don't want anything right now."

"Not Soos!" Dipper yelled. "Zeus!"

"Oh," Soos called back. "Easy mistake to make, dawg!"

"I, uh, stopper thee!" Dipper said, plunging the stopper into the neck of the amphora.

A silent explosion poofed through the Museum, rattling things on the shelves. The Jackalope briefly thumped one of its hind feet. The Singin' Salmon began to croon "Old Man River" and got through the ninth bar before shutting up. And suddenly kids were rolling on the floor, giggling and kicking their feet in the air.

* * *

Minutes later, as the campers staggered out of the Shack and reeled and stumbled toward their buses, Stan gave their counselors a few last suggestions: "You got happy campers! They're stoned outa their minds on, uh, Mystery Shack goodness! Tell all your friends! But tell 'em if they're bringing busloads of kids, they need like two chaperones for every kid! And remember, you all had a great time at the Mystery Shack! Don't forget to visit the gift shop!"

A shuffling nine-year-old girl in a red tee shirt stared down at her sneakers and giggled. "My feet are fat pink whistling bunny rabbits! And I want sugar!"

An eleven-year-old boy in a blue shirt pointed and slurred, "How come the bus turned into a big grinning yellow cat?"

But Mabel assured Dipper, "They'll be fine after they sleep it off."

Dipper took the jug on a one-way trip to the Bottomless Pit.

And they all agreed not to take down the temporarily-closed notice that Soos had put up at the end of the driveway. It was only noon, but they had already put in a full day.

* * *

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Friday Morning: Wendy and I just got in from our run. Stan and Sheila are coming back today, giving Teek and Mabel the day off. Mabel's deep into planning for our party on Monday, and Teek is helping her._

 _I hope nothing happens today. We need a day of just normality. Not Gravity Falls normality, but normal normality._

 _Yesterday was so crazy! Mabel keeps making bad jokes—"Sorry all that BUGGED you, Dipper! Man, for a while there you were really ANTSY!" She also speculates on whether the kids in ant form did any fooling around—of the intimate variety—before they got changed back. After all, she says, the ants were wearing tee shirts but no pants. "Pantsless ants doing the fancy dance!" she says. I have no idea what that means._

 _Well, I do, but I really don't want to think about it._

 _Weird thing, before the end of the day yesterday Soos started getting calls and emails from the camps—they were all thrilled. Not only did the counselors and kids think they had a great time, but the kids got back completely exhausted, just wanted to climb into their bunks, and the camps were the calmest they'd been all summer. They're all planning more trips next year. Soos asked them to schedule ahead. We don't want nearly two hundred of them all at the same time again._

 _After the fifth telephone call promising a return visit, Soos went and tried to hide under his own bed._

 _I know that Mabel took a bunch of Smile Dip the last time she visited the Dusk 2 Dawn, and I tried to find out where she'd stashed it, but she's not talking. "I'm not an addict," she told me. "But I gotta keep some handy—in case of emergencies!"_

 _Funny, I can't think of a single emergency that Smile Dip could make better._

 _What a week._

 _Two more days now. Then the party. Then on Labor Day, goodbye to the Falls for maybe the whole rest of the year._

 _Goodbye to my Lumberjack Girl._

 _By next June, she'll have graduated from high school. I'll be ready for my senior year. She'll be nineteen. I'll be sixteen. Three years difference again._

 _On the bright side, as of Monday, I'll be sixteen and she'll still be eighteen. Just two years! Like magic!_

 _Stan says he's going to go to bat with our parents, fixing it so we can spend at least Thanksgiving here. Our school takes the whole week off, so that would be something. Not enough, but something._

 _We'll see. I told Stan that I hoped he could charm Mom and Dad into letting us come._

 _He grinned. "Oh, I think I can SPIN 'em a tale they'll agree to." He nudged me. "Spin, get it?"_

 _I didn't, but I smiled anyway._

 _Well, I've showered and dressed. Time to go down to breakfast. And another day in the Shack._

 _I just hope it's a really dull one._

* * *

The End


End file.
